Operation: Scorched Earth
by MercurialInK
Summary: MI6 want Alex back, but he's not going without a fight. Desperate, he makes a deal with the devil. Can Alex get what he wants and be both teenager and spy? There's no room for indecision, no going back - this is the end. Sequel to Bury Your Dead.
1. Survival

Operation: Scorched Earth – Survival

**So this took me rather longer than I thought it would to get written and ready to publish. But here it is! The final arc, which started with Red Crescent, continued in Bury Your Dead, culminates here, with Operation: Scorched Earth. Hint: That means you should go read those if you haven't before you continue. No, seriously, go ahead, I'll wait!**

**AHEM. Now that you've done that, here's a quick history lesson: Scorched Earth is the name given to the defense policy carried out by the Russians during most of it's history. When Napoleon invaded, the Tzar ordered the serfs to burn everything - homes, crops, livestock, etc - and retreat, forcing the French to advance, but be unable to gain any resources. They arrived at Moscow to find it aflame, in the middle of the harsh Russian winter that destroyed most of Napoleons forces. The same mistake essentially undid Hitler's army. Aside from the basic lesson (that most of us learned from playing Risk) that you should never EVER invade Russia if you're trying to take over the world, I just wanted you to know why I chose that particular name for this final arc. Draw whatever conclusion you like from that choice. XD**

**And finally, I would just like to say a few words. Thank you to my tremendous beta prone2dementia, who catches my absurd mistakes, and corrects me when I sound downright idiotic. **

**And thank you to my wonderful readers, who have stuck Alex (and me!) through to the bitter, bloody end. I hope to live up to and surpass your expectations. Hold onto your seats ladies and gentlemen - this is the end.**

…

The sight that Alex encountered outside the tent was like something out of a horror movie.

Bodies lay strewn about, scattered like dolls in a demented playground. Men dressed in forest camouflage moved about with guns, firing on the LRA. There were smoking craters everywhere.

The forest was on fire. It looked like someone had tried to carpet bomb the whole area. There were helicopters landing around him. It was like that stupid training exercise with ASIS all over again, except that this was very real.

_I didn't panic then. I won't now, _Alex thought determinedly. He needed to know who these attackers were.

"Rider?"

Alex whirled around, finger on his trigger. He stared into disbelieving eyes that belonged to someone he remembered from another life.

Walker.

Alex felt a headache come on as he started in disbelief at the former CIA agent that he had trained with at Malagosto.. Had Scorpia reformed? Had they come after him, or was this a coincidence?

And most importantly, how could he get the hell out of here as fast as physically possible?

"Hey, don't shoot, man. We're Gregorovitch's team," Walker said, raising his hands in surrender. "I decided to throw my lot in with the winning side a while back. Is Kony dead?"

"Yeah, he's dead," Alex said. He didn't lower the gun, however. His mind was racing, trying to figure out whether this was some kind of ploy. It would _suck _to have come through all this and to have killed Kony, only to die because he wasn't careful.

"We've been following you for the last few weeks in order to make sure you finish the job. But we have to get out of here, now."

"How do I know you're not lying?"

"I had a clear shot at your back and didn't take it," Walker said. Alex mulled over that. True. If he was wanted dead, there was certainly enough manpower (and guns) to take him down without needing him to surrender. A few moments of careful consideration told Alex that Scorpia really didn't have anything to gain from this, unless they wanted to take him alive.

There was no way Scorpia would ever want Alex alive, and as Alex highly doubted that the former CIA agent was working for MI6, he couldn't discern any motive aside from the obvious – that Walker really was here on the orders of the renegades to help Alex.

_Oh, what the hell, _Alex thought, and lowered the gun.

"Fine, but first sign of you lot ganging up on me, and I'll pull a Bond move on you."

"Perish the thought," Walker said. "Still crazy then?"

"Good to see you again, Walker," Alex responded, purposefully avoiding the question. He followed the man into one of the choppers. They were joined by some of the other men, and the chopper promptly took off.

"That creepy Australian dude told us to go in as soon as Kony called for you," Walker yelled over the noise.

_Almost thoughtful of him, _Alex thought, and then he froze. A sudden realization chilled him to the bone and warmed him at the same moment.

This was the first time he had ever been on a mission that his backup had actually arrived in time to help him complete his mission without getting severely injured. Sure, he had a few cuts that could stand some Triple Antibiotic Ointment eventually, but he wasn't bedridden. They had come through and helped him get out with the mission completed, no fancy stunts needed.

It was hard to wrap his mind around the fact that his most reliable backup ever had been provided by contract killers. He had no idea what to make of it.

_What a nightmare._

"Where are we going?" Alex yelled back at Walker.

"We're flying to Kampala, where there's a set of burn aliases waiting for us," Walker answered. "We'll hole up in a hotel and wait for our orders to come in and tell us where your final destination is. Until you're in front of our bosses, we'll be watching out for you. In the meantime, you should get some sleep."

Alex looked around at the contract killers who had surrounded him.

_Like hell I'm going to sleep here, _he thought. He didn't trust anyone in this helicopter not to slit his throat as soon as he was asleep.

He must have fallen asleep eventually however, because sometime later Walker was shaking him awake. Alex checked to make sure he still had his gun and the camera before he stood and stretched.

They landed at Kampala in the middle of the afternoon. It was blistering hot, and it was all Alex could do to stay upright.

The group of bloodied assassins took a taxi from the airport to a small hotel. The man driving kept glancing nervously in his rear view mirror, and his hand kept twitching towards the glove compartment. Alex surmised that he kept some kind of weapon there, and almost felt bad for they guy. True, ragged as they were, they looked no different than most of the refugees in the street. Alex doubted that they spent much time in cabs, however.

When they reached their destination – a building that looked like it was about to collapse on itself – Alex thought that the mercenaries would just shoot the driver. But Walker just handed him a stack of shillings and left it at that.

There were five of them, including Alex and Walker. He didn't recognize the other three men, who introduced themselves once they were in the hotel room and had checked for bugs. They names they used to introduce themselves to Alex were Anish, Dan, and Lee, though the teenager doubted that those were real names. True, they all seemed quite comfortable with the names, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. Aside from the fact that Anish was Indian and Lee was Asian, none of them had any real defining characteristics that would make them stand out.

Alex did, however, notice the weapons each one had on his person, and the way their eyes followed the same track that Alex's did, taking into account every detail that might affect a combat situation. Alex didn't need to bother giving the room a second glance to know that any attempted escape through the window would be hampered by the giant air conditioner that jutted out of the wall just below the glass. He saw Anish's eyes rest on it momentarily as they scanned the room, and knew that all five of them had taken that into account.

Five pairs of eyes memorized the layout of the room with two beds, a couch, and a small table. If the electricity had been cut, none of them – teenager or mercenary – would have had a problem finding their way around.

Hell, even the way they walked reminded Alex of himself, or other killers he had seen. With absolute purpose and confidence.

Everything about them screamed 'mercenary', and Alex was sure that as far as bought soldiers came, these would be among the best. He doubted Yassen Gregorovitch would stand for less.

The rest of the mercenaries had apparently dispersed to cities surrounding Lira, so as not to attract attention. If each team involved four men, Alex estimated at least three teams had been sent after him. Now that was backup.

This hotel room was only a temporary stop, however. The men changed clothes quickly, taking turns to dye their hair and change skin color. Alex's hair was still colored red from his last dye job, so he wasn't going to worry about concealing his hair. Instead, he claimed the couch to rest while the mercenaries did their thing.

"Oh, and Alex," Lee called to the teen as the mercenary left the bathroom. Alex looked up from the couch, wondering what the man had to tell him.

"First aid kit is under the sink."

The words came with a lot more tenderness than Alex would have expected. He felt something akin to gratitude rise up and choke his throat. Lee just clapped him on the shoulder and moved on.

Alex looked down and dodged into the bathroom without responding, locking the door behind him. He pulled the first aid kit out from under the sink, wincing as the act pulled at his cuts and bruises.

_Whoever invented button down shirts should get a Nobel Prize, _Alex thought, eyeing his torn and bloodied shirt. Had he been wearing a t-shirt, he would have had to cut himself out of it.

He winced at the lacerations that covered his body. He had certainly taken worse in his time, but it was never fun to be injured.

Gritting his teeth, Alex sought out his wounds and liberally made use of the kit's rubbing alcohol to clean them. He had to use a washcloth to gag himself when it got too bad for him to suffer in silence. Just because the people in the next room had saved him didn't mean he wanted to look weak in front of them.

When he finally made it to his wrists, Alex couldn't help but stare.

It looked like he had tried to kill himself. Aside from the black and blue bruises that came from having his hands chained and tied together, he hadn't been as efficient releasing himself from his bonds as he had thought. The blade had created lacerations that crossed over his veins.

Alex grimly set about cleaning and bandaging his wrists before he pulled on the clothes that Walker had tossed him, and left the bathroom.

The four men were sitting on the beds, cleaning weapons. Walker was talking swiftly and quietly on a mobile. As Alex watched, the man snapped the phone shut and broke it under his foot.

"Come on, Rider, we've only got a few hours," Walker said, gesturing for Alex to join them. "Our flight leaves at eleven at night, so we have a few hours in the city," Walker explained. "There's a change of plans – we'll be waiting for our orders in Paris – this safe house has been compromised."

"To whom?"

"Your best friends," Walker muttered.

Alex frowned. "How?"

Walker grit his teeth.

"An old associate of mine," he finally said. Alex wondered how much flak Walker had taken for letting himself be seen by someone who could identify him. "The problem has been rectified, but we'll be leaving ASAP."

"On the plane, we split up," Walker ordered. "Anish, you're with Dan, on a layover from South Africa, visiting Dan's in-laws. Anish is best man at your wedding in a month. You're marrying Linda Dinel. You were on flight 134, which was diverted because of problems with navigation equipment, and ended up in Jinja."

Walker handed the two their passports.

_Burn aliases, _Alex realized with a start. They wouldn't hold up to the kind of scrutiny that MI6 could bring to bear, but if the five of them played their parts right, they wouldn't have to worry about that kind of scrutiny.

"Lee, you're with Doctors Without Borders again."

"Again?"

"Obviously someone thinks you're rather good at the role."

"Oliver's better."

"Nobody disagrees," Walker responded, but he was smiling slightly. "Nevertheless, Doctors Without Borders it is."

Lee grumbled good naturedly as he flipped through his documents.

Alex watched with detached disbelief as the mercenaries ribbed each other like… like kid's on Alex's football team. Like teenagers. It was bizarre. Even Anish, who struck Alex as the strong and silent type, was smiling at their antics.

Unbelievable.

"Alex, you're with me," Walker finally said. "You're a stunt driver in a movie being shot in Amuru. I'm your bodyguard, escorting you home."

Alex nodded, taking the offered passport, which stated that he was a 23 year-old national from France named Adrian Saurel.

The plane ticket was for a flight to Paris. Alex felt his gut twist uncomfortably. The last time he had been in Paris, Ian had taken him there. They had spent the whole summer in France together, goofing off while Jack studied for the bar exam.

Now, of course, Alex could look back and see how blatantly Ian Rider had been teaching Alex to follow in his footsteps. Once upon a time, those thoughts had comforted him. Knowing that his uncle had wanted this made Alex feel better about spying.

And now Alex didn't want anything to do with the man who had raised him.

It bloody hurt.

Alex schooled his face to blankness, hoping that he had suppressed the guilt and hurt before it could register on his features.

"Be at the airport in three hours," Walker said. "If we're separated, the hotel is in your emergency contacts."

With only a quick goodbye, the three other men dispersed, probably to solidify their cover in the city.

"Rider, you look terrible."

"Really? I could have sworn that stunt drivers get hurt all the time," Alex shot back without malice.

"Grab a couple of hours of sleep, will you?"

Alex wanted to argue that he didn't need it. But he had been through so much that he couldn't find the strength to lie through his teeth. If Walker was playing him – well, he was too bloody exhausted to care anymore.

Walker woke him up sometime later. The teenager was on his feet instantly, ready to go. He was inwardly relieved – Walker had woken him in the middle of a nightmare. He had been standing over a girl with arms that ended in bleeding stubs. The world around him was full of gunfire and napalm, and Alex was holding a machete that he had used to maim the sobbing girl in front of her. And then her face became Jack's, and Alex saw Tom standing by the side, begging for her life. He awoke covered in sweat, disgruntled, and altogether not in the mood to pretend that he wasn't on the verge of freaking out.

He followed Walker out to the car.

"Come on, Adrian, or you'll miss your flight," Walker said.

"If I was driving we'd be at the airport already," Alex responded. His throat was dry, but he allowed himself to fall into the role. A slip up here in the taxi wouldn't matter (probably), but he could bet anything that if Walker had been spotted, someone would be keeping an eye out for them.

Walker, of course, looked nothing like himself. Alex wasn't too worried about them being followed.

"If you were driving, the car would already be a wreck at the side of the road. Kampala airfield."

Walker addressed the last to the driver almost dismissively, and Alex fought the urge to grin.

The ride to the airport was uneventful. Alex managed to spot some of the mercenaries at the airport, but he knew not to approach them. Until they had landed in Paris and determined a safe location, the team would have no direct contact with anyone who wasn't a direct part of their cover.

Alex slept through the plane ride. It seemed that his body was finally demanding that he catch up on the sleep he had been missing.

In Paris, Walker and Alex changed their appearances in a public restroom at a café, and met the rest of their team at a luxury hotel. Their room was really more of a suite than anything, and each of them had his own bed.

Alex was just thankful that there was air conditioning and a roof.

"Any problems?" Walker asked the team. Anish reported for himself and Dan, explaining that they had no issues with security. Lee grumbled a bit about the clerk who wouldn't flirt back with him, but Walker ignored the man. If he was muttering about attractive security agents, his flight had been fine.

It seemed that they had gotten out clean. Alex sighed in relief. International travel freaked him out these days. With security on flights being what it was, he didn't want to accidentally slip up.

Then again, he had proven himself quite capable of beating the system. Alex decided not to let it worry him.

"Keep this with you at all times," Walker said, handing Alex a mobile that he pulled out of the base of the lamp. Alex nodded and pocketed the phone.

"Hey, boss, there's scrabble!" Dan commented. He had been rifling through drawers while Walker took status reports and made some quick phone calls.

"No."

"Come on, just one game?"

"I'd rather have Arrow back on my team," Walker answered. The rest of the mercenaries groaned.

Alex decided that he didn't want to ask.

"Alex, want to play a game?"

Alex stared at the mercenary. He hadn't known what he expected mercenaries to do for fun. Maybe he thought they played Russian roulette or something.

But Scrabble?

"Sure," he finally said.

"How many languages are we counting?"

Alex grinned. Ian played the same way.

"Anything with a Germanic root. Nothing Semitic. All dead languages using the English alphabet and all Latin languages."

"I'm in, so long as you add any transliterated curse word," Lee said, joining the two at the table in their suite.

"Deal," Alex said. Anish and Walker exchanged glances and reached under their beds for a black case they must have known was lying there. Alex didn't even have to look to know it held guns.

Lee eventually won the scrabble game, though not by much. The game had eventually deteriorated to the point where everyone was suggesting curses in different languages with no tiles actually being placed onto the board.

Anish joined the fight by adding Indian and Arabic curses to the mix, and Walker finally just yelled at them all to shut up.

Four pillows hit him at once.

"That's it, I pick next game," Walker said with a grin that promised the fiery wrath of hell. "And it's going to be fight club, ladies."

Anish groaned good-naturedly while Lee and Dan cheered, and Alex realized that these four spent a lot of time together. He didn't want to seem like he was inquiring too deeply into the structure of their organization, so he said nothing, but their interactions belied a familiarity that was almost impossible to fake.

Alex wasn't even a little surprised to see newly acquired guns slipped under pillows as they settled down to sleep. He had to smile to himself as he claimed the couch. He wondered if he should be ashamed of himself for identifying with killers.

_That's what I am now, _Alex realized, almost surprised. Not a killer, not a spy, nor a teenager or a mercenary, but someone who was all of them and none of them at the same time.

Morning came, and the men dispersed across Paris. So long as none of them was ever more than half an hour away from Walker, this didn't seem like such a big deal. Alex guessed that they had gone through this routine before – waiting for orders in random cities.

He vaguely wondered if he would get in trouble for using his newly acquired ID to go to a bar. A year ago, dodging his minders to drink in Paris would have seemed like a great thrill. Now it just seemed like immature musing. Alex chuckled to himself, and enjoyed the sights of the city. After spending so much time with the LRA, it was a relief to interact with people in a way that was at least a little bit normal.

Several days went by. Alex convinced Anish to continue the education that Yedit had started with his Arabic language skills, and spent a lot of time working on learning the new language.

The five of them spent almost a week and a half in Paris before Walker actually made good on his threat to force the others to fight one another. Alex groaned along with Anish and Dan when Lee had finally traded one too many insults with Walker and made him mad enough to declare a "Fight Club."

Of course, given what Alex had seen of the movie in English class, this version was much tamer. Two beds were pushed together to make the area. Whichever opponent pinned the other to the bed for three seconds won.

Alex at first couldn't believe people did this for fun, but he soon got into it. Anish started telling stories of what fight club looked like during basic training, and it actually sounded kind of fun. They fought without punches or lethal blows, more like a game than anything else.

Alex won both of his fights, and lost the third to Anish, who moved far too fast for Alex to keep track of. The Indian man might have been slim, but he had a lot of muscle, which allowed him to pin Alex down after half an hour of brutal wrestling.

The teenager hadn't gone without a struggle, and even though he lost, he grinned. It had been a brutal fight, leaving Anish with a bloody nose, as well as deep scratches on his back and Alex with a shirt that was torn to shreds.

Sore, but gratifyingly so, Alex slept like a log. It didn't escape his notice that his nightmares seemed to have faded since they arrived in Paris. It was a welcome respite.

He was woken in the early hours of the morning, however, when the hotel phone rang loudly.

"Whiskey here. Uh huh. Gotcha. 0300 hours, boss. We'll be there."

It was a conversation that took less than twenty seconds. Alex groaned and rolled over.

"Catch, Rider!" Walker called from across the room, and Alex reflexively raised a hand from his sheets and caught the package of hair dye that Walker threw, as well as the bag of clothes that went flying behind it.

"And here I was thinking that my hair was finally starting to grow out from the last time I dyed it," Alex griped good-naturedly. There were still orange tips on his shaggy hair from that adventure. His hair was almost at his shoulders now, Alex realized. He hadn't been minding it much, but he wondered when he was going to get a chance to cut it.

"I always knew you were a dumb blonde," Walker shot back without any malice.

"At least blondes get all the girls!" Alex answered brightly and without even thinking. It was like being with Jack again, trading sarcastic jibes and mock insults. Like being home again.

"Whatever you say, blondie."

"Killjoy."

"Shorty."

"Virgin."

"Loon."

"Oh, come on, I'm not a loon!" Alex shot back.

"And I ain't a virgin blondie, but there you go," Walker answered with good humor. The rest of the mercenaries were chuckling, leaving Alex with no doubt that the nickname 'blondie' was going to stick. God damn the CIA and all former American agents.

Just like the last time they had been moving out, the men took turns in the bathroom, dying their hair and, for some, applying lotion to darken their skin (or, in Dan's case, washing his off). Walker's skin remained the tanned color it had been since they arrived in Paris.

Alex no longer doubted that he was one of them. Perhaps he was not _exactly_ the same, but he was close. Somehow, between trying to find out the truth behind his uncle's death, being dropped into a pit of crocodiles, and being dragged halfway across the world and back again, he had become a trained professional. He'd had no teachers and no school (if you didn't count his brief stint with Scorpia), and no official training, but he learned more from experience than lectures anyway.

Once the last mercenary had finished with his disguises, Alex began the meticulous process of changing his own appearance. Not that it was excessively difficult – he just had to be careful.

"Come on, we're moving."

Alex ducked out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel as he watched Walker boot up a laptop computer and connect it to the room's printer.

"Separate cabs, we meet at the airport in an hour," Walker said shortly, handing out boarding passes as the computer printed them, along with new burn identities.

Alex was thrown for a loop when he saw their next destination. They were flying into Heathrow.

"Is this really a necessary risk?" Alex asked, looking up.

"Go yell at the bosses if you have a problem with our itinerary, blondie. In the meantime, grab a cab from the coffee store down the street and get your ass to the airport, would you?"

"Sure thing, killjoy," Alex grinned back. He shouldered his backpack – really more for show than anything else – and saluted the mercenaries.

"Grab some coffee and normalize while you're at it, you little brat."

Alex chuckled and flicked Walker off before closing the door behind him.

"Can we keep him?" Dan asked. Walker glared.

"No, no, we can't," he said. "We're just escorts. So shut up and look over your cover."

….

Alex bought a coffee from the café and hailed a taxi to the airport. He was almost loathe to leave the city – Paris was a wonderful place to be, and he actually didn't mind being there with the mercenaries. They were fun, and they understood Alex in a way he hadn't ever expected anyone to be able to.

He wondered briefly if he was making a mistake, running from this. He didn't really have a name to place on his interactions with the mercenaries, but they had understood him better than anyone he had ever known, and he had enjoyed his time with them. He wondered if it wouldn't be so terrible to sign on with the renegades.

The answer he got from himself in response was disturbing enough, and so Alex chose not to dwell on it too much. He wanted to remove himself from the politicking of MI6, not place himself in a position where they would hunt him down forever.

The taxi ride was short. Alex paid the cab driver and went through security. He expected at least to catch a glimpse of the others as he went through, but none of the mercenaries was visible. Perhaps they had already gone through?

That thought soothed him until Alex made it to their departing gate.

_So maybe they're all spread out through the airport, getting coffee, or making sure nobody is following them. They'll be here._

Alex went to buy himself a newspaper, and sat reading it. He tried to avoid obsessively checking the mobile Walker had given him for the time.

The teenager tried not to allow his agitation to show as the boarding time drew nearer, and still there was no sign of the mercenaries. Had something happened? Was their cover blown?

It didn't seem possible. They had gotten out of Kampala clean. Alex had made it through security without a fuss.

So what was taking these guys so bloody long?

When the attendant called for passengers to board, Alex almost wanted to stay behind. He knew, however, that that would be a terrible idea. He checked the emergency contacts in his passport, and found an address in Kent. If they didn't show, he would go there and report in that the four had gone missing.

Still, he harbored some hope that the four of them might come running towards the plane at the last second, having been held up by traffic.

_Even if they miss the plane, there are plenty of normal reasons for that. If they got in an accident or something like that, or there was traffic, or the lines for security were long._

Alex knew he was deluding himself. But the four mercenaries could take care of themselves. They were fine.

He told himself that as he sat down on the plane and listened to the instructional video.

He told himself that as the plane began to pull away from the dock

As the vehicle lifted into the air, and there was no sign of the mercenaries anywhere, Alex was forced to admit that they weren't here.

He was alone, and the only people who were protecting him had missed the plane.

….

It was highly irregular for four men who had received military training together to ever be assigned to the same mission.

And yet, here they were. The scattered remnants of a unit, who had trained together for a short while at Brecon Beacons, were gathered in a shitty apartment in Singapore. They had been staking out the apartment across the street for a week, and they were all extremely bored. The apartment had a thick aroma of smoke and sweat. The summer was almost over, but it was still as hot as hell trapped up here.

These four men worked for four separate branches of the military, though they had all trained with the SAS.

First, there was Kyle Sanders – once codenamed Eagle by the other men he was sharing this apartment room with – who was currently in the infantry. He was the oldest of the four and had done three tours already. He was a tank driver and an explosives expert. He had a Masters in chemistry and physics.

Duncan Reid, once called Snake, was a medic who had served a tour of duty with the Royal Marines. He was young, impulsive, and rash – essentially everything his teammates didn't want on this mission. In fact, before Alex had shown up, it was his case that Wolf had been on. When Cub had left, the rocky relationships between the four had evened out; Snake sometimes figured that he owed the teenager his career. He certainly had plenty of respect for the kid after watching him take down a bunch of hijackers. As far as Snake was concerned, they had no business going after Alex Rider.

Ben Daniels was the official team leader. He was technically still in training, because of the time off he had taken working for SIS on special operations. He was highly trained in the special ops and commando style attacks that would be necessary to bring a spy like Alex Rider down, no matter how much he hated what he had to do. He wasn't quitting on the SAS ever again, so he really had no say in his participation on this mission.

Really, the only thing that qualified him to be called a team leader was the fact that he knew their target and their target's methods better than any of them. He had seen the spy in action, and he knew Alex's methods of operation. But Ben, along with the others, knew he was just a resource to help catch their prey. He wasn't in charge any more than Wolf or Snake.

It was James Garrott who was the real leader. He was also the only one of the original four members of K-Unit who was still in the SAS, working as a paratrooper. His specialties were strategy and tactics, linguistics, firearms, and moodiness.

The man who still proudly bore the codename Wolf was a real commander – the kind soldiers followed without pause, not because they had to, but because they wanted to. Officially, his current codename was Viper, but even his commanding officer called him Wolf. He had completed a tour of duty as an infantryman before entering the SAS, and overseas and at home, there was a longstanding joke that he was the 'Flying Wolf.'

The four sat together in shifts of two, watching the apartment next door, waiting for some sign of life. Surely they had not traveled halfway across the globe just to find another dead end? Rider had to be here.

The former members of K-Unit had started their mission in Uganda. Blunt's agents had intercepted a call on tapped line that suggested that Alex was in Kampala, in the company of internationally wanted criminals.

They had arrived to find that Alex was most definitely not where they had thought he would be. It was clear he and the mercenaries had cleared out of the hotel hours ago.

A conversation with about a thousand cabbies idling by the hotel had told them that Alex was using a French alias, and was headed for Paris. One of the drivers identified Alex's photo as a French stunt driver, of all the ridiculous covers in the world.

And so K-Unit had followed. Without giving much information to the French, Blunt had managed to convince them to allow K-Unit to operate unhindered in their search for the teenage spy.

Wolf almost growled like his namesake as he thought of that night. They had arrived in Paris exhausted and impatient, and had immediately tracked down the hotel where they had tracked Alex. Wolf had kicked down the door, expecting to find the rogue Cub and some shady mercenaries, but Cub was gone again, and they had been met with live fire from the four who were left. It was lucky none of the British soldiers had been injured.

For a while, it seemed that K-Unit had lost their target, but Alex's trail appeared again.

They had followed an arms deal and a plane ticket from Paris to Frankfurt, from Frankfurt to Cyprus, and finally to Singapore, and they were reasonably sure the boy was here, lying low.

For some reason, this apartment seemed to be where Alex's journey had ended.

If he would just fucking show himself.

James lit another cigarette and watched it burn down. He was on duty with Snake now, his eyes glued to the miniature camera they had set up inside the apartment. Sooner or later, Cub would come out.

In his peripheral vision, James watched the cigarette burned down. He had quit years ago, but he liked the smell. The fact that it pissed Snake off didn't hurt either.

Though Snake _had _been quiet lately. James could only figure that it was because of the bullet wound in his shoulder; the man should still be on medical leave, damn it! As a medic, Snake should have known it too. So what the hell was he doing here?

James pondered that as the cigarette burned to the filer. He tossed it into the ashtray without removing his gaze from the monitors.

Sooner or later, Alex would show himself, and they would catch him.

…..

**As always, thanks for reading!**

**~InK**


	2. Finding Your Feet

Operation: Scorched Earth – Finding Your Feet

**Hey there! So it's been a much longer wait than I anticipated it would be… but this chapter is finally done! Huzzah, right? I hope you enjoy this next chapter in Scorched Earth.**

**As always, a big round of hugs and kisses to my wonderful beta, prone2dementia, who is awesomeness personified. I also want to thank all of my wonderful reviewers. Your comments are love, and they get me through the day.**

….

Alex was a wreck by the time the plane touched down at Heathrow Airport. Outwardly, he was calm, but on the inside, he was freaking out.

Had MI6 caught the mercenaries? Would they be waiting to arrest him as soon as he arrived? Would they risk exposing him in a crowded airport?

There were too many questions, and Alex didn't like it. So for now, he decided to keep his eyes open but to act as though he hadn't been compromised. If he let himself believe his cover was blown, he would undoubtedly do something that would ensure it was.

So instead, Alex calmly shouldered his bag and followed the line of weary travelers as they straggled out into the airport.

Alex looked down at the emergency contact address in his passport as he waited in line at customs. He could take a train from London to Ashford and, from there, buy a cab up to Kent. He had about 150 pounds in the bag Walker had given him, enough money that he should be fine to get to wherever he needed to go.

It was still early in the morning, and the airport wasn't very crowded. That made Alex uneasy as he moved through the throngs of people and got out into the street. He caught a cab to the train station, where he bought a ticket on the next train leaving for Ashford.

With about half an hour to wait, Alex slid into the bathroom and changed clothes. He put on a pair of sunglasses and a baseball cap. It wasn't perfect, but it was the best he could do.

The train left the station with no problem. Alex settled in for the journey and managed to grab about an hour's sleep before the train pulled in to the stop at Ashburn.

He left the train feeling groggy and muttering curses in different languages under his breath. The stress was starting to get to Alex, and he felt exhausted and drained. The sun was rising in the sky as he stumbled onto the street outside the train station and hailed a cab.

Wearily, Alex told the driver the address and sat back. Twenty minutes later, the cabbie pulled in at the address in Kent.

Alex's first thought was that he couldn't have possibly gotten the right address. He couldn't believe that this was a safe house for mercenaries and assassins.

_I think that's kind of the point, _Alex thought, bemused, as he paid the driver and hoisted his bag over his shoulder once again.

The house was two stories tall, painted pale blue. There was a garden out front, bursting with brightly colored flowers. There was a line of tomato plants just under a bay window that Alex bet was made of bullet resistant polycarbonate glass.

There was a cobblestone walkway and even a perfectly painted white picket fence. A gate on the side of the house indicated a pathway from the backyard, though Alex would bet anything there was another escape route on the other side of the house.

It was just so… so normal. Alex made his way up the cobblestone walkway and rang the bell. The chimes sounded the first few notes of _Here Comes the Sun._

_I will never understand these bloody assassins, _Alex decided.

The door swung open.

"Come in," someone called from inside. Alex stepped forward, and the door closed behind him with a snap.

Yassen Gregorovitch was standing in the hallway, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, drinking coke.

Alex decided from that point on that he would never again be surprised by anything assassins did. Ever.

"Hello, Alex," Yassen said. If he noticed that Alex's brain seemed to have just short-circuited, he didn't show it. "Perhaps you would like to join us in the kitchen and explain where the rest of my team is?"

That finally got Alex moving. He followed the Russian assassin through the tastefully decorated hall into a very modern kitchen. There was a window that opened on the side of the house, Alex saw, and three separate entrances into the room. He approved of the table made of reinforced steel, since it could be used as a shield against gunfire.

The Australian and Evert Zaaiman were sitting at the table with a laptop computer open in front of them, arguing with a third man, whose back was turned to Alex. He was obviously in a bad way – there was blood dripping heavily from his arm onto the table.

"It is fine," the man was saying, sounding like a sulky teenager as he applied pressure to the bleeding wound with a towel.

"Your brachial artery was hit, and I believe your humerus was shattered," The Australian said coolly. "Go see Lulu and have your arm repaired because, if you do not do so, your arm will be rendered useless, and I will simply have to shoot you. Hello, Yassen, Alex."

The man with the bleeding arm turned, and swore. Alex felt a wave of relief – and then panic, as he realized the implications of Anish's injury – wash over him.

"Anish, what happened?" he demanded.

"I will tell the story. You go have your arm fixed," The Australian ordered briskly.

"Yes, mother," Anish muttered under his breath. He smiled at Alex.

"Good to see you're alive," he said, and vanished through one of the doors into the dark hallway beyond.

"Is he going to be okay?"

"This house has a fully equipped medical facility upstairs," Yassen supplied for Alex's sake. "In a month, Anish will be more or less back to his old self, though he'll be as stubborn as ever in the meantime."

"What happened?" Alex repeated his earlier question, sitting down at the table.

"MI6 followed your trail from Uganda and found your hotel in Paris," Evert said, speaking for the first time since Alex had come into the room. "A trained extraction team broke into the room soon after you left. Anish escaped through the window after taking fire and used some of his contacts to fly to Bristol."

"What about the others?"

"One of our contacts from a private hospital in Dijon reported that Dan has arrived there safely and is being prepped for surgery. We'll know more in a few hours. Walker and Lee are still missing, and until they report in, we must presume that they are in the custody of MI6."

Alex nodded, but inside he was seething at his former 'employers'. For the moment, it didn't matter that the mercenaries who had saved his arse in Uganda were paid killers, murderers for a profit.

What mattered was that they had been there when he most needed them, and they had treated him as an equal. They hadn't belittled him, but they hadn't expected him to do more than he could handle either.

Remembering something, Alex pulled the miniature camera out of his bag.

"Proof of Kony's death," he said casually, placing it on the table in front of him. He refused to allow himself to think of what he had had to go through to get the image on that camera. He shoved the revulsion down, and looked up at the three men who had taken over for the executive board of Scorpia.

Zaaiman was already plugging the device into the laptop computer, bringing up the files. If he had any kind of internal reaction to seeing a dead man on his screen, he certainly didn't betray it.

"Well done, Rider," he said. Alex bowed his head in acknowledgement.

"Your end of the deal?"

"Ah, yes," The Australian said. "We laid a false trail from your hotel in Paris that will lead the extraction team across the globe. They will spent a great deal of time believing that they are hot on your trail until the tracks we have created end. That should give us enough time to get you settled in just fine."

"What did you have in mind?"

The Australian went over to a drawer under the kitchen counter and pulled out a false bottom from underneath. He pulled out a file.

"Let me introduce you to Michael Cooper," The Australian said. "Seventeen-year-old national of Britain, born in Scotland. Mr. James Cooper died on active duty for the Royal Marines three months ago – that would be your father by the way – and your mother ran off rather than support a teenager. You've been living on your own in Manchester since then, having dropped out of school."

"You will, of course, be planning on taking the GCSE tests independently, however," Yassen cut in. Alex stared at him. He knew that without decent scores, finding a job would be quite difficult, but they could have just hacked the Ministry of Education and done that as well.

Yassen had the ghost of a smirk playing around the edges of his mouth, as if sensing the question that was on Alex's mind, and just daring him to ask. Alex knew he wasn't going to win an argument with these men, however – they had been playing the semantics game long before he had even been born. Instead, he chose another, but no less relevant, line of questioning.  
>"This information is secure?"<p>

"You could get into the Pentagon with this caliber of document," Zaaiman said with a smile. "There are people at your school in Dublin that would swear that they've known you all their lives, and a handful of soldiers who served with your father who would do the same. It is an entirely new life, one free of the machinations of MI6, just as we promised you."

Alex opened the folder and looked at its contents. There was a wallet with a school ID, driver's license, and credit card. There was a house key and even pictures of a family dog. A passport that looked like it had several years of wear indicated a trip to Costa Rica, and bore several stamps from various countries in the EU.

It was all that the renegades from Scorpia had promised and more.

It was an entirely new life.

Alex snapped the folder shut.

"That's in order then," he said. "Any of you know which train I can catch to Manchester?"

"There is one point of contention that we would like settled," Zaaiman continued with a smile that could only be described as a smirk.

Alex looked at the three men, wondering if now would be a good time to run as far and as fast as he could in the opposite direction. If they were about to attempt to double cross him…

"Yassen here believes that you require a… roommate of some kind, while Evert has pointed out that we have neither the inclination nor the agents to provide a caregiver for a teenager who does not want or need one."

"No one from social services would put a teenager on his own, and as Alex has repeatedly demonstrated, he can hardly find his own breakfast without managing to blow up a drug lab or something of the sort," Yassen said coolly.

"I didn't blow it up," Alex argued. "I dropped it into a police station."

"You are not disproving my point."

"So your assessment is that I need a babysitter," Alex said, trying to follow the logic.

"My assessment is that I – and now we – have made a heavy investment in your continued safety," Yassen answered. "It is only reasonable to protect that investment. There is also the fact that Alex has never lived alone before and is likely to forget to feed himself."

"So now I'm incompetent."  
>"I trust you to know which way to point a gun," Yassen answered dryly. "But you are just as likely to blow up your flat trying to cook dinner as you are to go after random criminals."<p>

"And who would you send?" The Australian seemed to actually be seriously entertaining Yassen's arguments.

"Anish will be out of commission for several months," Yassen said. "This is an easy assignment – Alex just needs someone to keep an eye on him, which Anish can do and still heal from his injuries."

Alex thought about that. He got along well enough with the Indian mercenary, and it wasn't like Anish would be there to be his guardian, more like a roommate.

And Alex was adult enough to admit (even if it was only to himself) that he really _didn't _want to be left all by himself. He knew that this was a play by Yassen to keep him close to the renegades and set him up for later recruitment, but he didn't care. Anish could teach Alex a great deal.

Besides, when everything was said and done, Alex actually liked the man. So long as Yassen knew that he knew what the assassin was trying to do, he figured that there wasn't to great chance of him getting manipulated into doing something that he didn't want to do.

"Fine," he said. Yassen looked surprised and suspicious that Alex had given in so easily, but Alex ignored him.

"What?" Alex asked in response to the looks he was getting. "I'm told growing up does entail being able to admit one's own shortcomings. Yassen is right, however much I'm loathe to admit it, and so I'm agreeing with him."

Yassen was still looking suspicious, and the Australian was examining his hands, looking smugly entertained, but Zaaiman just shrugged.

"If that's settled, you can stay here for the night, as Anish won't be fit for travel for several days," he said. "There's a guest room at the end of the hall to your left."

Alex wondered briefly how mad someone would have to be to actually sleep in the same building as a handful of known assassins. Perhaps it made a difference now that he was one of them, but the idea didn't seem as absurd as it might have under normal circumstances.

Alex snorted inwardly. Normal circumstances hadn't applied since Ian had died.

He nodded to the three men and picked up his bag and his folder.

"See you, then," he said, and quickly removed himself from their presences.

"Oh, and Alex," Yassen called when Alex was already in the hallway. Alex turned back, sticking his head around the corner. "Please do try not to blow up anything while you're here."

"I'll take your objections under consideration," Alex answered, as seriously as he could muster, and then bolted.

Just because they weren't actively trying to kill him didn't mean that he should spend more time than necessary around them, after all.

Despite his wearying day, Alex rose with the dawn and went through a set of kata before getting ready for the day. It was a habit he had gotten into in Uganda that he had easily adapted into his normal routine. He really couldn't afford to let dodging bullets be his only outlet for exercise .

Alex grabbed a breakfast of cereal and coffee from the kitchen, and set about trying to find something to do.

The house was tastefully decorated, in a quiet neighborhood of tastefully decorated houses. He didn't want to spend too much time wandering around outside before he had the chance to change his appearance to that of Michael Cooper, but from what he could see, it was a neighborhood full of young couples and children. Kids rode up and down the block on bicycles (or tricycles, in the case of the very young children), and ran through the streets with jump ropes and chasing footballs.

Parents puttered away in gardens or chatted in doorways as they kept one eye on their work and another on their children.

Alex, who had never quite gotten around to actually liking small children, found it endearing.

It was also a very clever place to hide. In a small neighborhood where everybody knows everybody, it would only take a few pointed questions of a police officer to know nothing was amiss. Alex suspected that a couple of agents were posing as a young couple and living in the house. Their story would have to include coming from large extended families of eccentric billionaires or something, in order to explain the frequent comings and goings through all hours of the day and night.

Alex didn't see any of the head renegades again, and he strongly doubted they were even still in Britain. There were a few mercenaries wandering around, and it was a relief to sit and eat and speak with them.

Alex was still trying to figure out why he didn't feel uneasy around so many people who would turn on him for the right price.

Anish was lucid a day after his surgery, but he was confined to his bed for the entire week that followed. Alex visited him a lot, though the Indian clearly wasn't in good spirits. Most of their conversation was held between muttered Hindi curses and threats, mostly centered around Anish's clumsy and heavily bandaged arm. The fact that it was his right arm didn't help matters – Anish was slowly being driven insane by his own uselessness.

"I'm sorry you had to get injured because of me," Alex ventured when he first visited with the mercenary. Anish had shaken his head and grinned at Alex.

"I've taken worse for lesser men," he answered. "This too shall heal, and I'll go back to my job. In the meantime, I'd rather be keeping busy, but I can't even leave this damn bed!"

They ended up staying at the safehouse for the entire week. Anish knew better than to argue with his surgeons.

In general, it was difficult to argue with people that you know can boil you from the inside out without leaving a single trace of forensic evidence, so despite wanting to be on his way as quickly as possible, Alex didn't push for Anish to try and get out earlier.

Instead, they spent time talking about tactics or guns, and pretty much anything, really. Alex found that he was actually having fun. He suspected that Anish was only teaching him to stave off his own boredom, but the boy wasn't going to complain.

A few days after Alex and Anish had arrived, Dan checked in at the safehouse. He stopped by Anish's room to commiserate with the misery of bed rest, but he only stayed a few hours. Several large shards of glass had ended up in his leg as he fled the agents MI6 had sent after them, but he had healed just fine and was being sent out on an assignment. Alex stifled his curiosity and forced himself not to speculate on what Dan might be doing _on assignment. _It wasn't his business.

Walker and Lee never checked in.

Neither Alex nor Anish said what they were thinking. Either the two mercenaries were dead, or in the hands of MI6. Alex wasn't quite sure which one was worse.

Instead, he threw himself into studying languages. Anish had begun the process of teaching him Hindi and Hebrew, as well as Arabic, and he taught languages the same way Ian did, through lots of practical application and conversation. As he knuckled down to learn a whole new way of manipulating his vocal cords to speak the Semitic languages, Alex grimly thought about his mission in Egypt. He found himself wondering if Yedit would be proud of his progress.

As soon as Anish had the blessing of his doctors, he and Alex boarded a train. They switched lines five or six times to throw off anyone who might be following them, and once they arrived in Manchester, they took some time in a public restroom to change their appearances.

They got to their flat late in the evening. Anish's face was pale, and he seemed to be holding off pain from his arm, which still rested in a cocoon of bandages and was held in a sling.

It was actually a very nice flat. It was on the smaller side, but it was cozy.

The only real problem was the single bedroom.

"Toss you for the bed?" Anish offered as they stood at the entrance to the room.

Alex turned away.

"I'll take the couch," he answered. Anish sounded like he was going to protest that he didn't want any pity, but Alex was already pulling extra linens out of a cupboard.

"If you wake me up in the middle of the night because you fall off the couch and into that arm of yours, Yassen will kill me, because I'll likely end up killing you," he said. "It's just self-preservation. Take the damn bed."

….

Alex woke up early the next morning and went through his usual routine. Anish joined him after fifteen minutes, and Alex watched him out of the corner of his eye. Even with one arm in a sling, he still moved gracefully. He had to remind himself to focus several times before he was done.

Alex used the computer in the living room to do some job searching before grabbing a bite to eat.

"Alex, you realize that we do have plenty of money here, right?" Anish asked.

"I'd prefer not to end up owing anything to any of your bosses," Alex sniped back as he jotted a promising looking place down on a piece of paper. "No offense or anything, but I'm done being taken advantage of. Besides, call me crazy, but I'd like to earn my own money with a career that doesn't call for killing people, yeah?"

"Whatever, man," Anish said with a grin that belied his tone. "But with your luck, you'll end up working at a pet shop that's actually a front for drug dealers, or the mafia or something."

"I'm not that unlucky."

"I – and everyone I work for – heartily beg to differ."

"Well, you guys kill for money, so kindly get your nose out of my business," Alex replied. "How's the shoulder?"

"Great."

Alex shoved Anish slightly, and the man paled with pain.

"I thought so," Alex smirked. "Go take a painkiller while I try to find some food that isn't laced with some kind of horrible poison."

"There's cyanide in the Trix," Anish called as he headed for the bathroom. Alex, who had just poured himself a bowl of said cereal, glared in the direction of the door and dumped the cereal – bowl and all – into the trash, before he heard Anish barking with laughter from the other room.

"Oh, very funny, you moron!" Alex called back to the Indian man. "I thought that your toothpaste was starting to smell like almonds too!"

The two shared a breakfast of dry cereal (Alex still wouldn't touch the Trix), which seemed to be one of the few edible things the flat had in abundance. Of the six cabinets in the kitchen, one had cereal, one had canned food, two had a supply of vials labeled with chemical formulas that Anish immediately forbade Alex from touching on principle. Another cupboard had pots and pans filled with ammo and C4. The last one had first aid equipment.

"Okay, this is ridiculous," Alex said, staring at the open cabinets. "Don't we even get coffee or something?"

Anish tossed Alex a small package of instant coffee from a drawer. He didn't look thrilled with the food selection either.

"Don't use those pots and pans for cooking," Anish warned him, closing the cabinets. "The last time I stayed here, I used them to make napalm."

Alex blanched inwardly as he eyed the cooking utensils with a new eye, but kept a straight face. He had the feeling he would be eating out a lot.

"Right."

Anish opened the fridge and made a face.

"Okay, so it looks like someone left their blackmail material in the fridge."

"What?"

"There's a finger in here."  
>"Bollocks."<p>

"No, seriously, there's a finger in here. Come check it out!"

"I'm not listening!" Alex hollered as he grabbed his coat. He didn't know whether Anish was joking, but if he wasn't, Alex didn't really need to see any human appendages in the place where he would be expected to store food.

He headed out into the landing and shut the door, but he was grinning even as he turned and ran down the seven flights of stairs that stood between him and the street.

He was going job hunting.

Alex had typed up a resume last night. He supposed he should be glad that Michael Cooper had actually had a decent resume, aside from dropping out of school (a minor detail). He refused to let himself dwell on the horrific assignment that had earned him this new life.

He wasn't going to look back. That was one surefire way of getting himself killed.

Today was a fresh start as Michael Cooper. Alex Rider was gone, and he wasn't coming back.

That put a smile on Alex's lips as he got onto the subway.

By lunchtime, however, that smile was back into a crooked line. Four of the five places he had tried to apply to had told him not to bother giving them a resume. The last had only accepted it with a sympathetic smile that left Alex little hope at being hired.

He was a college drop out, after all.

Alex cursed under his breath as he left the sixth place he had marked on his list. He had grabbed lunch at a deli between job interviews, but now it was well into the afternoon, and he decided to call it a day.

Dejectedly, he looked at the last place he had on his short list. It was a pub called the Queens' Apple. It probably wasn't even worth a try, but what the hell. At least it would allow him to stay away from home, where there were fingers in the freezer and napalm in the cooking utensils.

The pub that Alex had put on his list was clean and didn't have a reputation for fights. Alex wouldn't be able to tend bar, but he could legally work as a waiter, if he were ever hired, a feat which currently seemed impossible*.

_Just one more interview, _Alex decided. He _really _didn't want to be around when Anish found a head under the bathroom sink or anything. He didn't need or want to know.

The manager of the pub was a woman in her mid thirties, with shockingly green and purple hair. She spoke with a mild Irish accent and had just about a thousand piercings. A bat-like wing stretched around the back of her throat to make itself visible just above the woman's right collarbone.

"Hello, lad, what kin I do ye for?" she asked Alex.

"I'm looking for a job, ma'am," Alex answered.

"First of all, the names Piper, not ma'am," the woman said, putting her hands on her hips and surveying the teenager in front of her. Alex noticed she had an intricate Celtic knot tattooed on the inside of her left wrist, half hidden by the rag she had been using to wipe down one of the tables.

"And second, you look about three years too young to be working in a place that serves alcohol, and about the right age to be causing all sorts of nonsense trouble, so you should probably get."

"I'm seventeen, ma'am – I mean, Piper."

"Uh huh."

Alex bit his lip.

"Look, Piper, I'm really hurting for the work," he said. "I promise I won't be any trouble. I need a job. I'll do any work you've got for me."

Piper glared down at Alex for a moment and then held out her hand.

"You got a resume then?"

Alex wordlessly handed the paper over, bracing himself for the rejection that he had gotten at the last six places he had visited. Piper glanced over it, and then looked back at Alex.

"What's your name, kid?"

"Michael Cooper."

"You know how to clean tables?"

"Yes, ma'am – sorry, Piper."

"Can you unclog a toilet?"

"Excuse me?"

"Can you unclog a toilet?"

"Yes," Alex said. He wasn't certain about his competency in the subject, but he figured he could work it out as he went, just like he did with most everything else.

"Well, Michael Cooper, you've got puppy dog eyes, and I need someone to clean the bathrooms in back, so I'll try you on," Piper said at last. Alex felt his heart leap.

"You want me to clean toilets?"

"More than anything else in the world, kid."

Alex hugged Piper earnestly.

"When do I start?"

Piper pried herself loose from the teenager, a small smile slipping through the scowl that Alex already suspected didn't leave her face very often.

"Tomorrow, seven in the morning," she said. "You'll be cleaning up for the morning shift. Don't bother showing up if you're so much as a minute late. If you make it through the day with us, you and I can talk about your salary."

Alex nodded his head, promising that he wouldn't be late.

"We'll see," Piper said, scowl now firmly in place. "Now scat, kid, I got work to do."

Alex wanted to sing as he biked back to the flat.

With an independent source of funds, he wouldn't be reliant on the renegade mercenaries for charity, and he could get back some semblance of normalcy.

"Hey, Anish!" Alex called as he unlocked the door. "Did you find any more body parts?"

"No, but there was a couple kilos of cocaine under the couch."

"So it's party time?" Alex asked, not taking the Indian seriously for even a second. He heard a chuckle from the kitchen, where he found Anish sitting on the floor in front of a vat that smelled like extra strength bleach.

"Something like that," he responded. "C'mon, Alex, I've just starting cleaning this place out. Did you have a productive day?"

"I found work," Alex shrugged, grabbing a plate and a sponge, and sitting across from Anish on the floor. "How about you?"

Anish nodded towards the boxes that were packed to the side.

"Don't bring any matches into the flat from now on, okay?"

Alex grinned.

"Oh, by the way, I picked you up a Desert Eagle," Anish said conversationally. "I didn't know if you had any preference, but it's a solid weapon."

"Nah, the Desert Eagle works fine for me," Alex answered. "Mostly I just work with what I have."

Anish nodded thoughtfully and, without warning, switched their conversation into Arabic. Alex scrubbed at plates and skillets as they talked, cycling through languages without much care.

In some ways, this was so much better than the normalcy Alex had always wanted. He imagined that if he had known Ian was a spy, this kind of evening activity would be commonplace – switching through languages as they cleaned cooking utensils from their latest round of explosives making.

Alex shook himself out of the fantasy with a frown. That future was gone now. Ian had turned traitor. Alex wondered if he was dead now. If he was, it might well have been Yassen who killed him.

Or perhaps MI6 had decided that he had outlived his usefulness. Alex scowled, and the cup in his hand shattered.

Anish looked up,his eyes widening with horror.

"Clean that out. Thoroughly. Immediately."

His voice was only bordering on calm, and Alex didn't fight the urge to run to the bathroom. Anish was right behind him, and the Indian poured half a bottle of rubbing alcohol on Alex's hand as he ran the sink over it. Alex bit his lip to hold back the excruciating pain. Anish used tweezers to pull the pieces of glass out of Alex's hand, and dumped the rest of the bottle over the still bleeding hand. It was clumsy process with the Indian's left hand, but he made it work.

Anish was cursing in Arabic, and Alex was surprised to hear words not even Yedit had used. Anish forced Alex to hold the hand under the sink for several more minutes before he consented to wrap it up in gauze.

"Please tell me that you're just overreacting and there was actually nothing in that cup," Alex said, trying to stay calm. For all he knew, someone could have been making anthrax in there. Or explosives. There were all sorts of horrible things that could have been brewed in that cup, and now they were most likely in his blood.

"One way to tell," Anish said, with a frown. He grabbed a first aid kit from under the sink, and took out a syringe. "I'm going to test the glass and your blood."

Alex consented to having the needle inserted into his skin and filled with his blood. He waited anxiously as Anish put the glass shards into a bag with some chemicals.

After three minutes, when there was no change, Anish sighed with relief, sagging against the wall.  
>"Nothing on the glass," he said. "But I'm sending your blood to a friend to check, though. No sense in being too cautious, all things considered."<p>

Alex nodded. He too was sagging from a release of tension he hadn't even known he had built up.

_I'm fine, everything's fine, _he told himself firmly.

"From now on, nobody touches those dishes without gloves on," Anish muttered. "Or better still, you don't touch them at all unless you're in a biohazard suit."

"Oh, har de har har," Alex answered. He stood up from the seat he had taken on the edge of the tub. "We good?"

"Yeah, we're good," Anish answered. He was still staring at the bag with the glass shards in it. His good left hand was shaking. "But no more close calls like that. I just don't want-"

"If you get sappy on me, I'll be forced to hit you."

Anish grinned and, with his free hand, slugged Alex on the shoulder, a blow Alex knew would bruise.

"Be more careful, man," the Indian said. "Do you have any idea what Gregorovitch would do to me if you died on my watch?"

But later that night, when he was laying on the couch, Alex replayed that scene in his head, and he knew that the look in the Indian mercenary's eyes had nothing to do with the cold Russian assassin.

It was nice to feel cared about, Alex reflected, as he pulled his covers around himself. Even if he and Anish did make the strangest pair that had ever been brought together.

Shifting to make himself more comfortable, Alex realized that he didn't feel like a stranger in his own skin anymore.

Maybe everything _was _going to be okay. Maybe the teenage spy who had seen too much actually _could _get his happy ending. Alex barely dared to hope that this could be the case, but the thought brought a smile to his face, knowing that possible future didn't scare him anymore. He was excited to meet what tomorrow would bring, not resigned, like a man facing the gallows.

With that cautious optimism, Alex slept like more soundly than he had for a long time, and he didn't dream.

…

***So, according to ****Section 153 of the Licensing Act of 2003, minors cannot sell alcohol in England, but they can serve it with a table meal, so long as the person who approved the sale is overage and is licensed to do so. I'm thinking that the place where Alex is going to work is less like the bars in the U.S, and more like a legit pub, where people go to eat, and sometimes to drink. Make sense?**

**Also, can someone explain to me the reason why I just spent half an hour reading up on alcohol licensing laws in a country I've never been to? =)**

**Anyway, you know the drill. Review please?**

**~InK**


	3. Equilibrium

Operation: Scorched Earth – Equilibrium

**Hello my loves! This chapter is brought to you from my college dorm room! I'm sorry I haven't updated in almost a month, but its been a busy summer, and this entire chapter just did _not _want to be written... but now I'm very happy with the way this ended up.**

**As always, a thank you to my wonderful beta reader prone2dementia, and to the reviewers who make my day. ;) The next chapter shouldn't take as long to finish up, and thats where the action starts really picking up. **

**Have a wonderful day!**

**...**

Alex was woken up by the sound of a bullet firing. He rolled off the couch in seconds with his gun in hand, safety clicked off before he had even opened his eyes.

"Morning, sunshine!"

A fully dressed Anish was standing a safe distance away from the armed teenager. There was a stack of books at his feet, which had clearly been dropped on the floor. Alex's barely awake brain processed this, and he slowly lowered his gun.

"Dear god why?" Alex asked. He flicked the safety back on and returned his gun to its spot on the nearby table.

"This is your study material for the GCSE's," was Anish's reply. "And it's already four thirty, so quit moaning."

Alex stared incredulously at the Indian mercenary. He could feel a headache already building behind his eyes.

"You do realize, of course, that this means war," he said slowly.

"No contest," Anish said with an easy grin. The only thing that kept Alex from lunging across the distance between them and breaking the man's jaw was the memory of the last time they had fought. Anish had easily kicked his arse, and they had just been wrestling for fun, not fighting with the dirty tricks both of them utilized.

"Whatever," he said. "What time did you say it was?"

"Four thirty in the morning," Anish replied cheerily. "I just got back from a meeting. Why are you still asleep?"  
>"What is wrong with you?"<p>

"Anyway, I'm making coffee. Do you want some?" Anish asked.

"No, seriously, did your mother drop you on your head when you were a kid?"

"So that's a yes to coffee then," Anish surmised. "It's Fair Trade, by the way."

"I'm thrilled," Alex said. "But let's prioritize. What could possibly possess you to wake me up at four thirty in the morning?"

"Alex, I'm just doing you a favor!" Anish protested. Alex _might _have bought the innocent indignation if there weren't such a mischievous glint in the man's eyes. "Now you have an extra few hours to read through your test material."

Alex groaned and fell back into the couch, wondering if it was too late to try to catch another few hours of sleep before his shift.

He couldn't attack Anish, but there was nothing, however, that prevented Alex from using his teenage superspy skills to prank his roommate into oblivion. Revenge is a dish best served cold, after all.

The smell of coffee drew him out from under the covers minutes later, and the teenager was forced to admit to himself that he was well and truly awake, and that today was going suck.

Grumpily, he went through his kata – just because he had been dragged out of bed at an ungodly hour didn't mean he had to fall behind with exercise. When he was done, he showered and quite resentfully picked up one of the study books. He had resigned himself to taking the tests, either as Michael Cooper or Alex Rider.

Really, he should feel lucky – he had been fourteen the last time MI6 had called on him. That year had screwed with his education, sure. But he had made it through two whole school years after that before he had been shanghaied into working for the agency again.

All Alex had to do was make sure he kept up with his education through independent study, and he would be fine.

It was his last year of school, and he was chafed at the idea of missing his graduation, and being at the top of the school with Tom. He had been in line to be the captain of the football team too.

It was strange to think that everything he had worked towards since he had finally made it back on his feet was now gone. It was strange, but also liberating.

Alex missed his life in Chelsea. He would always miss it. But he had known last year that there was no way he could be happy living the life of a normal teen. Yeah, it was nice to get through the day without a single threat to his life, and without dodging bullets,

but Alex couldn't bear to think of being one of those teenagers who only cared about grades and girls and parties. It was all just so trivial, so childish. It had taken a long time for Alex to feel even slightly normal sitting in a classroom again, but he could never quite get rid of the voice in the back of his head that reminded him he had stared death down and won. That he had saved the world multiple times, and had been shot in the chest and survived, while the girl next to him had been wondering if he was available and interested.

Alex decided he was actually pretty glad to get out of his last year of school, so long as he could keep busy.

Which was why he found himself standing on the doorstep of the Queen's Apple at 7:58 in the morning, ready for a rewarding day of cleaning bathrooms.

"Morning, kid," Piper grumbled as she unlocked the door for him. "We open at ten. Mop and bucket are in the closet over there. Toilet's through the door over there."

Piper pointed as she talked, and Alex nodded. She was scowling again; Alex wondered if it was because of him, or the early morning, or the permanence of her grumpy disposition. There was a girl at the register, apparently counting the cash from the night before. She was blonde with wild streaks of red in her hair. Alex wondered whether crazy dye jobs were a requirement for working here – it seemed so for the women.

"When you're done, come find me for another job," Piper finished, and stalked off towards the kitchen.

"Don't sweat it, kid, she's like that with everyone," the girl at the register said with an encouraging smile. "She'll normalize a bit after her morning cuppa though."

"Get back to work, Lina!" Piper snarled as she stomped out of the kitchen with a cup of tea carried between her hands like a precious gem. "And why are you still standing there, kid? I gave you work to do!"

When Piper turned away, Lina met Alex's eyes with a smile and winked. "Sorry, boss," she said, sounding anything but. Piper grumbled something that sounded like a curse word before she stormed back into the kitchen, presumably to terrorize the cooking staff.

"As you heard, I'm Lina," the girl at the register said with a grin as Alex grabbed cleaning solution, a mop, and a bucket from the closet Piper had pointed out.

"I'm Michael," Alex said.

"Well, it's good to meet you, Michael," Lina said. "Now scoot - you should get to work before Piper comes back."

"Indeed," Alex said, unable to hold back his own grin. He decided that despite its awful beginning, today was starting to look up.

And then he opened the door to the men's room.

The bathroom was filthy. Alex stood in the doorway, vaguely wondering how Piper could have possibly kept her store in business when her bathrooms were so gross.

_How could one day's use do this much damage? _

The floor was literally _coated _with dried mud and grease. Alex was confused, until he saw the door in the back. It was locked from this side, but Alex would bet that it was an oft-used shortcut from the alley in back.

_Get a mat or something, _Alex thought. He decided that he wasn't going to let the dirt dim his good mood, but this was just… unbelievable. He really hoped that this was just some kind of passive aggressive hazing ritual, because if he had to clean this up every morning, he was going to get exasperated pretty soon.

Alex rolled up his sleeves and resigned himself to a long job in front of him.

As he worked, Alex plotted ways to get revenge on Anish for his rude wake up call this morning.

It was almost nine by the time Alex had gotten all the grime off the floor. He had needed to change the water in his pail more than a dozen times since he'd started, but the floors were sparkling clean. Alex turned his attention to the sinks, the mirrors, and finally the stalls themselves. Cleaning up vomit was disgusting, but at least it was quick.

Alex was sweaty and dirty when he finally left the bathroom, but he felt very rewarded.

Seeing him free, Piper pointed wordlessly to the women's bathroom next door, and reminded him he only had forty minutes before she opened the pub.

Alex internally groaned, but he went without a word. He did need the job, and Piper was willing to hire him if he made it through the day, so he would just grin and bear it and hope that things would ease up.

Thankfully, the girls' loo was much easier to clean. Alex suspected that this was because it wasn't actually used as a shortcut through the pub. If he wasn't already exhausted from his massive clean up job in the men's, he might have found the fact that he was in a woman's loo for the first time in his life slightly more surprising.

Piper was waiting for Alex by the door, looking at her watch, when he emerged.

"Five minutes to opening," she said with a scowl. Alex didn't know if she was impressed he had managed it, or angry that he had cut it so close. She jerked her thumb towards the supply closet.

"Put that stuff away, grab a rag, and make yourself useful buffing tables," she said shortly and walked off, presumably to go torment the kitchen staff or torture a kitten or something.

Lina was flicking absently through the pages of a large binder, and she gave Alex a smile and a wink when he looked her way. Alex returned the smile and lugged the equipment back into the closet, before getting to work wiping down tables.

Despite being open, the pub remained empty until around lunchtime. Piper kept up a constant stream of work for Alex, and seemed to convince the rest of her staff to find as much busywork as they could for him.

Richard, the head of the staff in the kitchen, had Alex cleaning silverware that already gleamed, and scrubbing floors that were probably okay to eat off. He seemed like an affable enough guy though; he made jokes (most of them culinary related), and let Alex cotton on to the fact that he had always wanted to be a world famous chef. His staff consisted of two college students, Lionel and Ginger.

Lina traded off sneaking the staff sodas, tending bar and working the register with Fred, an Australian surfer who seemed to have absolutely no reason to be in Britain whatsoever. He complained about everything, from the weather to the job, but he always had a small smile at the edge of his lips, and Alex quickly realized that this was more of a joke than anything.

All in all, the staff of the Queen's Apple were friendly and they accepted Michael Cooper without much fuss. They were young, none of them a day over thirty-five, but Alex liked that about them too. It was almost like hanging out with kids his own age again, even if he was the youngest one there.

The day passed very quickly. Alex's arms felt like they were going to fall off, but he was also feeling very satisfied about the whole endeavor. As the evening shift began at five, and the day staff began to leave, Piper pulled Alex aside.

"You've got the morning and afternoon shifts from now on," she said shortly. "Bathroom, tables, kitchen, same drill as today. We're closed on Sundays. The pay is ten quid an hour, paid by the week. See you at eight tomorrow. Now get."

Alex gaped, but nodded and fled, leaving the gloves and rag he'd been using in the supply closet.

Ten quid an hour was more than Alex had possibly hoped to expect for cleaning bathrooms. He quickly did the math in his head as he unlocked his bike from the back. Working eight hours a day, six days a week, he'd make 480 quid. A week.

The spy in Alex immediately whispered that the deal was just too good. There was no way that someone could reasonably expect to make that much money cleaning bathrooms.

Alex bit his lip, and ignored the spy. He refused to turn into some kind of paranoid lunatic who couldn't even hold a job because he saw conspiracy everywhere he went.

Besides, while Alex might have had some reservations working for the very grumpy Piper, nothing about her or any of the other staff raised any kind of alarm bells in his head. She was surly, not dangerous.

He told himself he would keep an eye on things, be wary, but unless he saw something worrying, he wouldn't do anything at all.

Anish wasn't home when Alex arrived. There was a note on the table that said he was picking up some takeaway on his way home, so Alex sat down at the kitchen table to read about the French revolution. All the revision he had done as a fourteen year old after MI6 promised to leave him alone had helped Alex develop the motivation necessary to learn on his own. He might never _like _studying, but he could sit down with a textbook and learn when he needed to.

When Anish arrived with a bag of Thai food, he found Alex in the middle of a practice essay.

"Hard at work studying for your exams?" Anish asked with a smirk.

"Yeah, I'm having loads of fun," Alex answered sarcastically, checking over his essay to make sure that he hadn't forgotten to mention anything important in his last paragraph.

Intellectually, Alex understood that knowledge was power, and that the more he knew about the world, the less likely he was to someday get blindsided in the course of his work. He knew that education was important, and that understanding the deep-rooted histories between countries, the motivations of rogue countries and madmen with delusions of the past might someday mean his death or his life.

On a deeply personal and emotional level, Alex would rather shoot himself out of that kind of situation than spend all his free time staring at a book.

"I'll bet," Anish said, and Alex gratefully pushed paper and pencil aside, rubbing his temples.

"That the food?" he asked, nodding to the bag of takeaway. Anish nodded, and Alex opened it, setting out trays and pulling out chopsticks and plastic plates.

Anish switched the conversation to Arabic. Alex felt a supreme smugness to know that he was picking up the language so quickly. Sure, his conversational abilities might be on par with that of a ten year old, but he was learning more every day.

"All right, enough," Anish said at one point. "I need to shoot something. You coming?"

Alex stared at him.

"Can you aim with your left hand?"

"Can you aim with either one?"  
>"Cute," Alex shot back. "I'm game if you are."<p>

Anish grinned, reaching across the table for his gun.

"Well then, let's get cracking then!"

"Um, Anish, where do you expect to shoot something this late in the evening?" Alex decided to ask as they settled into Anish's car.

"Oh, you'll see," Anish said. They drove for maybe half an hour before parking in front of a perfectly ordinary residential house.

"Anish, you're supposed to warn your roommate before you make them an accessory to murder," Alex said. He tried to make it sound flippant, but he was actually really nervous. He didn't want to get dragged into any heavy shit just because Anish was bored.

The mercenary was grinning, however.

"Chill, Alex, we're not killing anyone tonight."

Alex wasn't reassured as Anish led the way to the door and knocked. A woman in her forties answered.

"Anish! It is wonderful to see you again! Come in! And you must be Alex."  
>Alex was swept into a hug from the tall woman, before she stepped back and allowed the two inside.<p>

The inside of the house looked like a shooting rage.

"The entire building is fully soundproof," the woman said proudly as Alex took in the targets that were set up on one of the walls.

"Alex, this is Marie, an old friend of mine," Anish said. "Marie, this is Alex, who's rooming with me for the moment. Can you set us up on lanes ten and eleven?"

"Sure thing. sweetheart," Marie said, bustling away. There were two people already firing on the other side of the room, but they didn't so much as look towards Alex or Anish.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say she's sweet on you," Alex commented as he followed Anish to the lanes, and accepted a pair of earphones from the Indian. "And by the way, I'm going to have to kill you if you mention me to any more of your _old friends,_" Alex added for good measure.

Anish chuckled, but he didn't comment.

"All right, let's see what your aim looks like," he said instead, putting the headphones on. Alex copied him, and they raised their guns in one motion. The teenager fell into the proper stance almost automatically. It was a reflex born of his many years on the job.

Alex didn't wait to fire. He emptied his clip shot after shot.

Only one of the bullets didn't hit the bull's eye. Alex grinned.

Until he realized that Anish had managed to cluster all his shots in the center of the target, firing with his left hand. He stuck out his tongue at the Indian as he switched targets. Anish just smirked back.

The following days passed quickly and in much the same fashion; before anyone had really seen it coming, two weeks had passed. Alex and Anish quickly settled into a routine of working out together in the morning and studying in the evening. Anish cleaned his guns, or read, or did his physical therapy while Alex worked on staying ahead of his curriculum for his final year of study. Before either of them knew it, a whole week had gone by. Alex didn't know what Anish did during the day, but he was inclined to keep it that way. He knew what Anish was and what his job meant, and that was enough.

They had been living at the flat for almost a week when Alex finally got his revenge for Anish's wake up call by dumping ice cubes in his bed. Anish retaliated the next morning by using an air horn to get Alex off the couch. Alex responded by putting jelly in the mercenary's shoes. Their good natured prank war continued to escalate as they roomed together, each one trying to outdo the other.

They went to Marie's house several times a week to practice firing, always late at night. Alex guessed Anish was avoiding the larger crowd of people who might go there. Maybe he was trying to keep Alex from getting spooked.

The spy in Alex reminded him that Anish was working for the renegades, and that the process of recruiting him had begun the instant he had agreed to kill Joseph Kony in exchange for a new life.

At some point, Alex graduated from bathroom cleaner to delivery boy. Sure, he still cleaned the bathrooms, but he now also spent a bit of time biking around town. He liked the exercise, and the excuse to get away from Piper was more than enough to make him agree the first time she had asked him to do the job.

He had been wiping down a table. Work was due to start in about half an hour, and Piper came up to him. She handed him a white plastic bag with a takeaway box in it.

"You got a bike, right?" Piper asked. Alex nodded, not knowing where she was going with this.  
>"Lionel's sister got mono, so he's at the hospital with her. Ginger's at the dentist, and everyone else is busy here," Piper said. "Deliver this for me. The address is in the bag. Can you handle that?"<p>

Alex agreed. Something about delivering takeaway food at nine thirty in the morning didn't seem to fit, but he did the job anyway, and every other time Piper asked him to.

_It's nothing, _he told himself. Really, he was just being paranoid. He watched his colleagues for signs of unusual behavior and found nothing, so he relaxed once again. He was just overreacting.

Piper was as short as ever, and Lina continued to flirt with Alex (though he had since come to appreciate that this was just something she did to everyone, guy or girl, she came in contact with, and didn't let it faze him). She was supportive and just plain nice, which was something Alex hadn't experienced outside of his life as a spy in a long time.

Maybe not since the last time he was with Sabina, before his uncle had him kidnapped.

Richard was fun to be around, if kind of harried. He had a single-minded determination that Alex admired, even if Richard's perfectionism got on his nerves sometimes.

What surprised Alex, however, was how well he got along with the youngest three members of the staff, Fred, Lionel and Ginger. Two days into the job, Alex could already see that the three of them were really close. All of them were just out of uni and looking for something to do with their lives.

And they included Alex almost effortlessly. Ginger talked to him about anything and everything while she organized ingredients and he cleaned in the kitchen. She even helped explain some of the principles he couldn't understand from the chemistry section of his GSCE prep.

Fred told absurd stories that nobody believed while he pretended to work at the bar. Lionel patiently explained every inside joke Alex didn't get, until he felt like he'd been hanging out with his three colleagues for way more than a couple of days.

Friday night, two weeks into Alex's job, the four of them spent the evening hanging out at Fred's flat, watching Fight Club. They were talking, and not really paying so much attention to the movie, but it was still a lot of fun. It was the most fun Alex had had in a long time that didn't involve spies or mercenaries or guns somewhere in the equation.

He got home past midnight.

"Alex, where the hell have you been?"

Anish was less than amused. He was sitting at the kitchen table, an untouched glass of bourbon in front of him.

"I wasn't aware that you were my babysitter," Alex answered, crossing his arms. Anish seemed to deflate a little, but his glare remained.

"I'm not, but I'm still responsible for you," Anish said. He was speaking slowly, as if he didn't trust himself not to explode. "Sometimes I wonder if you have any sense of self preservation at all! What if MI6 had found you? Or better yet, one of your enemies? I was this close to calling_ Gregorovitch _to ask him what to do about your disappearance!"

"Look, I don't need someone to be my keeper," Alex said. He wasn't quite sure why he was angry with Anish – the man was just looking out for his best interests. But he resented the implication that he needed someone to be looking out for him at all.

"I was perfectly fine," he continued stubbornly. "I was with some friends, okay?"

"No, Alex, it's not," Anish said. "I need you to call me with stuff like that, just so I know not to come looking for you with a commando team!"

"Or, and this is just one crazy idea, maybe you could do nothing in the future and trust me to handle myself," Alex sneered back, completely aware that he was in full tilt teenage tantrum mode. "And I know that your bosses may get a kick out of turning MI6's golden boy into a weapon of their own, but I doubt any of them would be heartbroken if I actually was in trouble, so don't even go there."

It was their first fight, made very awkward by the fact that the living room and the kitchen were connected, so there was really no place for Alex to retreat in his annoyance. Anish finally gave up and went to bed, leaving Alex on his own.

The next afternoon after work, Piper handed Alex his second paycheck. Alex felt a thrill of accomplishment as he put it into his bag. He had held small jobs before, but those were different from this kind of full time employment, and it was nice to feel like he was earning his own keep again. He hated existing at the mercy of MI6 or even Yassen Gregorovitch. He wasn't a charity case, and he didn't need them looking after him.

The next Friday convinced him otherwise.

"Hey, Michael, want to go out with us tonight?" Fred asked, coming up behind Alex.

"What did you have in mind?" Alex asked casually.

"Lionel, Ginger, and I are going clubbing."

"I'm seventeen," Alex said blankly.

"The place I'm thinking of doesn't card, and you could definitely pull off being in your twenties."  
>This was a bad idea. Alex should say no and walk away. He should definitely not get involved in whatever Fred had planned, because it was only going to end badly. There was no possible way that there was any gain from hanging out in a situation where there would be people abusing alcohol left and right.<p>

It was a really, _really _bad idea.

"Sure," he answered instead.

_You're an idiot, what the hell are you trying to prove? _the spy in Alex wondered later that evening. He was sitting in a club with his three colleagues, his third bottle of beer in front of him. It was almost ten o'clock; normally Anish and he would be leaving for Marie's right now to get in some shooting practice.

Anish might actually kill him this time.

"Guys, I should go," he said, sense finally overtaking stubbornness.

"Oh, come on, Michael, stay with us," Ginger pouted. She'd already had several beers and was kind of tipsy. Lionel and Fred seemed to be holding their liquor fine, but they weren't exactly holding back on their drinking.

"No, seriously, my roommate is going to flip," Alex insisted, moving to leave the bar.

"True, but I think the barkeep would flip even harder if he found out he'd been serving drinks to a minor the whole evening," Fred said. There was something dangerous in his tone, even though his expression was perfectly friendly. He could have been joking, but Alex didn't exactly get that vibe from him.

He sat back reluctantly.

It was past three in the morning when he stumbled into the flat, piss drunk and hardly able to walk straight. He collapsed on the couch fully dressed and passed out.

He woke up to see a very angry face mere inches from his own.

"You are an idiot," Anish said, holding out a glass of water and a painkiller. Alex groaned something that sounded like an apology and a thank you all in one.

"Right, listen up," Anish said, once the painkiller kicked in. "I think this hangover is enough punishment already, so I'm not going to lecture you. But I'm going to make this simple, because I am _not _your babysitter. The next time you stay out past the time I expect you back, I will break both of your legs. Are we clear?"

There was none of the viciousness Alex had seen in Fred when the Australian had threatened him. Anish's voice was filled with concern and annoyance, not anger, and certainly not maliciousness.

Alex sighed.

"I'm sorry," he said finally. "I think I just had a moment of teenage angst and then… well, I'm sorry."

Ansih watched Alex, carefully looking for any sign that Alex was playing him. His eyes fixed on a bruise just barely visible inside the boys collar. When had he gotten himself injured?

Anish smothered his instinctual urge to strip Alex to his undergarments to see if he was hurt anywhere else. He had heard the boy stumble in – he certainly would not have been coherent enough to notice if he were badly hurt.

_If Alex stumbled and fell while drunk, it's not my business, _Anish told himself firmly and mercilessly. He had been forgetting rule numero uno: Don't get attached. Not to your targets or your clients or your classmates or even to your teachers. Never trust anyone.

"Fine," he said. The word came out more harshly than the mercenary had intended, and he nearly winced. Instead, he plunged ahead, reminding himself that this wasn't his battle. He wasn't here to defend Alex against himself. "Go shower, would you? You smell like a dumpster."

Alex followed Anish's suggestion, wondering how his clothes had some to smell so bad. They were covered in dirt. Surely he hadn't been rolling around in the mud while drunk, right? He couldn't remember even having fallen.

Come to think of it, Alex realized that he couldn't remember much of the evening. He remembered Fred's predatory smirk as he threatened Alex, and the rest of the evening seemed to be a blur.

He didn't even know how he got home.

Alex was mildly panicking at that point. What had he done last night?

Worse, in the middle of his shower, Alex remembered that he had still had his gun on him when he left work with the other three. As soon as he was out of the shower, he searched through his clothes thoroughly. He pulled on a fresh set of clothing, and went to search through the couch and the floor of the flat.

It was gone.

Alex sat on the couch, trying to control his breathing.

Something was wrong. Something terrible had happened last night, and he had absolutely no memory of it. Panic crept into Alex's gut, and only his experience as a spy allowed Alex to hold it in long enough to regain control of himself.

Cautiously, logically, Alex approached the issue.

He had gone drinking. He had had very little to drink (though most might say any alcohol was more than enough for someone underage), and yet somehow had had some kind of blackout. He was missing his gun, and there were several bruises on his body that hadn't been there the day before, as well as some shallow cuts.

_Fine, so you drank more than you realized, and when you stumbled home, you got injured. You fell and lost your gun along the way._

That could explain it. Except… except it was all wrong. Alex's shirt wasn't cut. The lacerations on his arms and torso were straight edged, not jagged like he might expect from a drunken fall. He kept his gun in a holster by his leg – it was extremely secure, and unlikely to be knocked loose by a fall. That was why he had chosen it.

Alex was sure that he had three beers over the course of three hours. They had been sitting at the bar for a bit, and had moved into a booth later… but Alex definitely remembered keeping track of his drinks. He had definitely only had three beers. He had texted himself every time he started a new bottle. He checked his phone – yep, there were only three texts.

Alex's head throbbed as he mentally did the math. He weighed… 170? Something like that, Alex hadn't checked in a while. He should have still been okay to _drive_, there was no way he'd had a blackout with that kind of blood alcohol content.

So what the hell actually happened?

_Maybe I ended up drinking a lot more after Fred convinced me to stay, _Alex tried to reason. There could be a perfectly normal explanation for his blackout.

_Or maybe someone slipped me something, _Alex thought. He winced. He didn't want to think about his friends having done something like that, as much as last night freaked him out.

Unbidden, an image of Fred's predatory smirk floated to the forefront of his mind, and Alex bit his lip with worry.

_How well do you really know these people? _

Alex winced again.

Shit, he was so screwed.

_Chill, _Alex told himself. He had a shift tomorrow. He could just ask Ginger or Lionel what happened. While he was out, he could keep a casual lookout for the gun. If he didn't find it, he'd tell Anish so that the Indian could have a head's up, just in case.

Everything would be fine.

He could fix this.

So why did this whole mess set Alex's hairs on end?

**...**

**~InK**


	4. The Calm

Operation: Scorched Earth – The Calm

*** peeks head out from around the corner * Oh Hai guys! You're still here! * eyes the pitchforks and torches apprehensively. * Oh look, pretty lights!**

**I'm very sorry about the long wait for this chapter. College has put a heavy strain on my ability to be creative outside the classroom. Though I did recently turn in a research paper on Harry Potter. That's kind of neat, right?**

**Please don't kill me?**

**Oh look, the chapter! * runs off at top speed ***

**Enjoy!**

**((PS- To the lovely wonderful anon reviewer who wrote me a GIANT review for Bury Your Dead with tons of wonderful comments and flattery… I don't know who you are. But I hope you read this, because you just totally made my entire week. And this chapter is dedicated to you, because your review finally got me to put my butt in gear and finish this already.))**

**I give thanks for my wonderful beta reader prone2dementia, who is awesome. ;D**

…**..**

_Name: Alex Rider. Age: 16. Location: Unknown. Status: Threat level red._

It was one line of text. Wolf stared down at it, the words illuminated on the screen of his phone. The message was old… he'd received it in response to his inquiry about Cub. This was all the information that his contact had been able to dredge up for him.

And it was a lie.

How could it be anything else?

Wolf was never one for believing in the unseen, but this was just utterly absurd. Cub?

Cub was a surly teenager he had trained with for two weeks. He took all the abuse that Wolf and his friends had heaped on him without a word. And aside from that, he was honorable. He hadn't gotten Wolf binned when he had the chance to make it happen. He'd given Wolf the kick in his arse he needed to get over his fear of heights, when Wolf had done his best to make the kid's life miserable.

Hell, Cub had even insisted on going back to a place where he'd nearly died, just to finish his mission. Wolf remembered what Cub had looked like in the hospital, with the dark bags lining his eyes, half dead from snowboarding down a mountain on a _fucking_ _ironing board. _And he had gone back.

No, this line of text was not Cub. The more Wolf thought about it, the less sense it made.

But in the end, for Wolf, it came down to one logical problem. Why would Cub run if he weren't guilty? Why didn't he let himself be captured, and explain himself?

Wolf would do his duty. He would follow his orders, even if he didn't like them. The same went for Snake, Fox, and Eagle. None of them was happy with this assignment.

Wolf's fingers itched for a cigarette. He doubted if anyone gave a shit if he lit a smoke in the back of a fighter jet, but he wanted to prove to himself that he didn't _need _the habit in order to get by. He just liked watching them burn.

The former members of K-Unit were on their way to California, where it seemed Alex had gone. The four had finally gotten fed up and forced open the door to the flat they had been staking out in Singapore. It looked like they had just missed the teenager – everything was thrown about haphazardly, as if someone had packed in a hurry.

The four military men were now trying to grab some sleep. Only half the team had succeeded, however; Eagle and Snake were leaning against the walls of the jet, eyes closed and looking peaceful.

Unfortunately, sleep seemed to elude Wolf and his on again off again teammate Fox.

"I don't think Alex ever went to Singapore," Fox yelled suddenly. Wolf looked at him. It was hard to hear over the screaming engines, but he had made out what the man had said.

"What?"

"There was dust on the shelves and countertops. Nobody had lived there for a while!"

Fox yelled back. "I think the whole thing was a setup to keep us busy!"

Wolf frowned.

He hadn't noticed any dust, but then Fox was more sensitive to those things. His SIS training was invaluable for this sort of long-term tracking. If he said there was dust, there must have been.

But the trail had been quite clear. They even had video feed of Alex arriving at the apartment two days before they got there.

Then again, their cameras had never seen him leave.

Wolf made a mental note to send along a message with the video feed, asking them to check for tampering. If Alex had never been in Singapore, he might not be in California either. And yet what could they do except keep following this trail and see where it ended?

Wolf looked back down at his phone and stared at the line of text there.

Damn it all to hell, if he ever did manage to find the blasted kid, Cub owed him some answers before Wolf handed him over. It was only fair.

One way or another, Wolf would figure out what the bloody hell was going on.

….

Alex really needed to figure out what the bloody hell was going on.

He was pacing across the very small amount of open space in the kitchen.

He needed to know what had happened last night. It was no longer a matter of idle curiosity. Alex was seriously freaked out by the fact that he couldn't even remember which drinks had put him out.

And bloody hell, don't forget the _gun. _

Anish was going to kill him if he didn't find the bloody gun.

He could replace it… but it wasn't like Alex knew where he could buy black market weapons. That was usually Anish's job, though Alex recognized it as a fundamental flaw in his education as a freelance mercenary. He needed to be able to get his hands on weapons independent of anyone else.

Alex bit his lip.

Anish was out at the moment. He had glared at Alex as he left the flat, and Alex had caught the meaning of his glance instantly. His roommate was very, _very _angry with him, and they _would _be discussing this.

He'd seen that look on Jack a couple of times.

Except he hadn't ever done anything as remotely stupid as he had last night. What on earth had possessed him to put himself into that kind of situation? If he told Anish the truth, the Indian would probably thrash him. Alex knew that he deserved it.

It was almost noon by the time Alex had managed to get a hold of himself and determine that he wasn't missing anything besides his gun. His wallet was untouched; he still had his phone…

So he hadn't been mugged.

Alex set about making lunch, because keeping his hands busy kept him from brooding, which was an entirely useless exercise

Weeks of sterilization and cleansing had rendered the kitchen semi-usable for cooking. Anish and Alex had worked together to replace the utensils and pots and pans, carefully labeling anything that was to be used for cooking and anything that was to be used for _cooking _of another sort.

Another person might have found it exasperating that he would need to go to such measures to avoid being poisoned by arsenic or TNT components, but for Alex, it was just another fact of his life. Like the fact that he would be heavily injured, and yet be unable to go to the hospital for fear that a blood or fingerprint ID would be made.

Or the fact that he had several people out for his blood.

Or the fact that he would sometimes wake up in the morning with no idea what happened the night before.

Alex felt like banging his head on the wall until he killed enough brain cells to forget this. But it was far more important that he find answers than forget his embarrassment, so he practiced some restraint and tried to figure out what story he'd be selling Anish on.

And damage control. Tons and tons of damage control. He needed to find out what happened and whether his new colleagues knew anything.

Which brought Alex down to a concerning thought. Were his coworkers in on whatever had happened, or was it pure coincidence that he had been attacked the night he had been out with them?

Alex's instincts screamed at him that there was no such thing as a coincidence, not for him.

So then the better question was _why_ it had happened. What were his employers hiding?

That question made Alex nip his plans on confronting Fred in the bud. He remembered the man's predatory smile from last night and knew without a doubt that he and Ginger and Lionel had had something to do with his lack of memory.

But for what reason? Were they drug dealers? Human traffickers? Alex sighed. It would be just like him to be innocuously working a job, only to run into criminals. Fantastic.

Alex bit his lip as he removed the pan from the stove, and piled the contents onto his plate. There was enough to leave leftovers for Anish, so he shoved it into one of the safe Tupperware containers before he tucked in to his own meal.

So what was he going to tell Anish?

He could tell the man the truth… but somehow, Alex wanted to deal with this on his own. This was his problem.

He decided that he would just wing it when Anish came back.

As if the Indian's ears were burning, Alex heard the door slam open. Alex winced as Anish stormed into the kitchen. Without speaking, the mercenary unloaded his three guns onto the table in front of them, and glared at the boy. Alex gulped, knowing that the Indian was distancing himself from his guns so that his temper would not get the better of him.

"Speak."

Towering over the teenager, Anish made for an intimidating sight. He was no longer wearing his sling (his physical therapist must have recently cleared him to start making use of the arm again). The man crossed his arms across his chest and waited.

"What do you want me to say?" Alex asked, his voice flat.

"Explain to me what the hell was going through your head when you deliberately disobeyed my orders!"

_I think I was poisoned, and we may be compromised, _Alex thought, but the words stuck in his throat. Since the death of his uncle, Alex had been forced to keep so many secrets it was almost impossible to know what he _could _tell Jack, or Sabina, or his friends. Whenever he was in trouble, he always had to watch his own back.

"I don't know," he said. Anish slammed a fist down on the table.

"Not good enough!"

"I—"

"You could have been hurt," Anish said, his voice like a diamond sharp knife. "You could have been kidnapped or compromised or arrested or _dead, _and you didn't contact me. For all I knew, MI6 could have caught you! And I find out you were getting bloody pissed!"

Alex stared at the table in front of him resolutely. His gut was twisting uncomfortably. He could just tell Anish what had happened, but he wasn't incompetent. He wasn't a child. He didn't need someone else to come in and save him.

The two of them remained silent for a long moment filled with tension and anticipation.

"I told you last night, it was just teenage pique," Alex said, trying not to sound too much like he was whining.

Anish examined the teen, eyes blazing. He knew Alex was lying. And Alex knew that he knew.

Finally, he sighed.

"Fine," he said. "Like I told _you _last night, I'm not your babysitter. Do what you want. But just in case you missed it when I said it the last two times, you _always _tell me if you're back after eleven. Is that understood?"

"Yes, mum."

"Don't get cheeky with me, you brat," Anish said, but his mask of fury was melting slowly. He knew that something was wrong – his instincts were screaming at him – but he had no proof, not yet.

"Now, don't you have studying to do?"

Alex scurried towards the couch to grab one of his textbooks, and set up at the table, working in silence. Anish produced a bottle of cleaner from the cupboard and began working on each section of his gun.

"A colleague of mine has a job for you," Anish said offhandedly, after about half an hour of companionable silence.

"Is this fair warning that I'm going to end up killing someone?"

"Hopefully not," he said. "My friend needs someone to look after her kids in the evening. Her husband's on assignment and she's undercover as a night school teacher or a prostitute or something. I thought you might like having the extra gig."

"You want me to babysit."

"Yeah."

"Me, babysitting," Alex said, his voice hollow with disbelief.

"Would you rather kill someone?"

"Maybe," Alex hummed, turning back to his textbook. "Do you think I should?"

"They'll be a good influence on you."

"How old are the kids?"

"Twins, nine years old."

"And you really have no problems leaving me around a couple of kids?" Alex asked, disbelieving. He had only ever babysat once before, for a family down the street. The three kids had spent the better part of the night just testing him to see how far he would go to keep them in line. That had not been fun.

Anish shrugged.

"Why not?"

Alex just started at the Indian, wondering if the man was completely sane.

"You're responsible, you can protect them if any problems come up, and you'll know if they're trying to pull a fast one on you."

"You're completely mad, you know that?" Alex said, a grin spreading across his face.

"Must be, given I'm responsible for babysitting you," Anish shot back, smirking over the barrel of his gun.

"Har har," Alex muttered, his face flushing.

"I am serious though," Anish said, looking up at the teen. If Alex got an evening job, he wasn't likely to get dragged to bars by coworkers. Anish could be sure that Alex was staying out of trouble, and also would be out of the way for the Indian mercenary to do a little investigating of his own. Something didn't smell right about this situation. Alex wasn't the type to engage in rebellious drinking.

Alex could read Anish's reasoning like a book and grumbled inwardly, knowing he wasn't going to get off the hook here. He did, however, recognize the virtue in not allowing himself to get dragged out to bars anymore – the incident last night had scared him.

"Fine," he said. "I'll give it a shot."

"Good, you start Monday," Anish said. "I'll give you the address, and you can bike over after work."

Of course. If Alex had had any doubt that this new job was about keeping tabs on him, it vanished with that statement.

"This is going to be fun," he muttered.

….

When Alex returned to work on Monday, the atmosphere was tense. He couldn't work up the nerve to ask Fred directly what had happened. Quietly, he found Ginger during their lunch break, and asked her what had happened at the bar.

Ginger giggled and ruffled his hair.

"Oh, Michael, you're so adorable," she had said. "Was that your first blackout?"

Lionel had come over and given him a high five for being such a 'partier.'

Alex just set his teeth on edge and went about buffing tables and cleaning spills. He really didn't think getting drunk enough to not be able to remember an entire night's worth of events was something worth celebrating, but hey, maybe it was different for normal college kids.

_Michael Cooper would probably be thrilled, _Alex thought glumly. But he wasn't Michael Cooper. He was Alex, teen spy, hiding from several government authorities and terrorist organizations, and if any of them found him, he'd be dead, or locked up in a cell for the rest of his life.

The thought had him in a bad mood for the rest of the day, and his coworkers avoided him like the plague. Alex wasn't asked to ferry any packages today, so he spent his shift doing odd jobs around the building. He was sure that the floors were clean enough to eat off by the time he was done.

He was in a bad mood as he biked back to his flat, where he was going to shower, grab a bite, and study for a bit before he began his second job.

Babysitting.

Alex tried to let that thought distract him from the much darker ones running through his head, but it was no use.

_I'm nobody, _he thought grimly. _I'm too young to be a spy, I've seen too much to just be a kid. What am I? Nothing. I don't exist. Alex Rider probably doesn't exist anymore, except on government watch lists. Michael Cooper never existed. Who. Am. I?_

All in all, it wasn't a very happy Alex who arrived back at the flat, so it was probably a good thing that Anish still wasn't there. He had left directions to his friends' house on the table, and Alex studied them before putting them in the shredder. No need to leave documents lying around, after all. Just in case.

After dinner and a shower, Alex was feeling much more like himself again, and was ready to try to babysit some kids.

_Try being the operative word, _Alex thought, grabbing his bike. _I wonder if it would be worth it to try to get a car…_

Alex sighed and jumped onto the bike, heading towards the house. It didn't help his mood that Anish was basically using this second job as a way to 'keep him out of trouble'. He was feeling rather rebellious and cantankerous as he went up to the door and knocked.

"Ah, you're Alex?" a woman answered, trying to shake his hand and put on an earring at the same time. Half of her blonde hair was still in curlers, and she was wearing sweatpants underneath a silk red dress.

"I'm Claire, nice to meet you," the woman said hurriedly. "I was so glad when Anish said you were available. I was scared I was going to come home and find the place blown up!"

Alex stared for a moment.

"Uh, blown up?" he asked.

"Oh, that's rule number one, no dangerous chemicals," Claire said, brushing off the concern in Alex's voice. "Right alongside no incendiary devices if neither parent is in the room. All the weapons are stored away, and all the chemicals are locked up, so your biggest problem is that the girls only get an hour of T.V. or leisure computer use a day and they need to have their homework done before they use it. Bedtime is ten o'clock sharp."

"Got it," Alex said, quickly committing these rules to memory and seriously hoping neither girl gave him any trouble. "Seems easy enough."

Claire nodded.

"They're sweet girls, Michelle and Madelyn, and they're usually not too much of a bother, just too clever for their old mum to keep track of."

"She said it!" a girl's voice yelled from the landing. "I told you she was old!"

Alex involuntarily chucked, and then turned it into a cough when he saw the woman strapping guns underneath her dress.

"For normal emergencies, I think you know what to do," Claire continued, shrugging off her sweatpants and tossing them into a hamper by the stairs. She disappeared into another room and came back holding a pair of very high stiletto shoes. "For emergencies of… other natures, I trust you to handle it and keep my girls safe."

"Yes, ma'am," Alex said.

"Both girls have backpacks for emergencies only under their beds. If you're compromised, try and get to them before leaving. Here, give me your phone."

Alex handed over the device, wondering if he should be worried about whatever this woman was going to do to it. He needn't have stressed, however: Claire just added her mobile number to his contacts list.

"That number is not for casual use," she instructed him. "I'm on assignment, so you only call that number if something awful happens and you have to leave. Otherwise, just report at the end of the night. If I'm later than I say, your pay is doubled by the hour until I get back."

Alex was starting to get dizzy at the speed at which Claire was talking.

"Now, do you have any questions?" she asked. "I'm sorry this is all a bit of a rush, but I'm late, and I really must be going."

"Don't worry, I've got this," Alex said, trying to sound confident. Terrorists, he could deal with. Assassins, he could handle. Multiple governmental agencies out for his blood? Sure, sounds like a Monday morning!

But kids…

"I'll be fine," Alex added, trying to sound sure for himself more than for Claire. "Good hunting."

Claire grinned at Alex, the smile resembling the predatory smirk of a wolf, and Alex found himself smirking back.

"It's a pleasure to have you on the dark side, Mr. Rider," she said, patting him on the shoulder. "If anyone is taking care of my kids who isn't me or my husband, I'm glad it's you. Your reputation precedes you."

And with that, she grabbed a coat out of the hall closet and picked her purse off the table just inside the door, and was gone into the night.

Alex was left staring at the staircase, feeling awkward. Finally, he decided he should take control of the situation.

"Uh, girls?" he called. "Michelle, Madelyn? Could you come here for a moment?"

_Very forceful, _Alex commended himself sarcastically.

_They're nine, I'm got going to order them around at gun point._

_It would make the job easier…_

_Oh, shut it._

Alex shook his head to clear it as the twins appeared, one of them sitting at the top of the staircase, the other sticking her head around the door. Both girls had a shock of bright red hair curling to their shoulders, and were spotted with freckles. They were slight, each of them casually dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.

"Hi," Alex said. "I'm Alex. I'm your babysitter, I guess."

Alex cringed. He remembered being nine pretty well, and he was almost positive that by that point, he had already felt that he had grown out of needing a 'babysitter'. He'd hated the word, because it was silly. He wasn't a baby.

"Okay, bad word choice," he said, seeing the looks on both girls' faces. "I figure neither of you really needs a babysitter anyway, you're pretty grown up already."

Twin beams told Alex he was back on the right track. "I'm really just here to be the legal adult, and to make sure that you don't accidently set the house on fire."

Michelle – Madelyn? – one of the twins – grimaced.

"One time!" the two girls chorused as one.

"Set the house on fire _one time_, and I hear about it for the rest of eternity," the one who had grimaced grumbled on her own.

"Out of curiosity, how'd you set the place on fire again?" Alex asked. The girl – the one at the top of the stairs - walked down a few steps so that she could look down at Alex more clearly.

"Deadly combination of aerosol cans, duct tape, and a microwave," the girl replied, shrugging.

"Okay, let's not do that," Alex agreed, wincing. "So I know your names are Michelle and Madelyn, but I don't know which of you is which," he added.

"I'm Michelle," the girl on the stairs said.

"And I'm Maddie, not Madelyn," the girl in the doorway said.

"Okay, Maddie," Alex said, nodding his head. "Fair enough. Like I said, I'm Alex. And unfortunately, your mom did leave me some rules, which I assume you're acquainted with."

Both girls nodded.

"Good," Alex said. "So I'm trusting you to follow them, because I have more experience dealing with terrorists and spies than kids."

The two stared at him with wide eyes.

"You're like mum then?" Maddie asked, and Alex could already see the hero worship there. Oh, bugger.

"Yeah, in a manner of speaking," Alex said. He needed to change the subject quickly. "Your mum said you both have homework to do?"

The girls nodded in unison.

"So why don't you get to it, because I do as well," Alex suggested. "If you have any questions, I'll try and give you a hand as best I can, how does that sound?"

"That's okay," Maddie said, making eye contact with Michelle in a silent pact to behave – Alex hoped.

"Agreed," Michelle said, and moved the rest of the way down the stairs, into a room beyond the entry hall. Alex followed her, with Maddie running along ahead of them both. They arrived in a spacious kitchen, with a breakfast nook set aside, where Maddie was already rummaging through her backpack for her homework.

Alex pulled his chemistry text out of his bag. He had been taking active notes for about twenty minutes when he felt someone poking his shoulder.

"Alex, what does x over twelve equals three mean?" Maddie asked.

"I can help you with your homework. I can't do it for you," Alex said, turning a page and not looking up. "That wouldn't be fair. I can go through the process with you on that one if you think it would help."

Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw Maddie nod, and so he set aside the chemistry book, and slid over to where the girl was sitting.

Maddie nodded determinedly and went back to the homework.

Five minutes later, Alex was poked from across the table.

"What's 'defenestrate' mean?" Michelle asked.

"To throw out a window," Alex said. "Are you reading about Prague?"

Michelle giggled and nodded.

"Well, you do know what people said about the Catholic delegation that was thrown out the window, right?" Alex asked.

Michelle shook her head, scanning her textbook to see if Alex's bit of information was there.

"Well, as you might guess, the Catholics said that the delegation landed safely, because they were guided by angels who softened their fall. The Protestants there would tell you that the delegates survived because they fell into a pile of horse dung."

Michelle giggled, covering up the smile with her hand as she turned back to the text. Feeling rather pleased with himself, Alex returned to his chemistry exercises.

About an hour later, both girls were done, and had their homework printed, stapled, and neatly packed away in the proper folder for each class, without Alex's input at all.

"Its eight o'clock," Michelle said, looking at Maddie. "Which means we have until nine."

Alex followed the girls into the living room, more out of curiosity than to really keep an eye on them.

Maddie turned on the xbox, while Michelle got the T.V. and controllers going. Alex immediately recognized the Halo game – how could he not? How many hours had he and Tom wasted on that game? Tons, he was sure.

The smack talk was even the same.

Alex felt like he was looking through some kind of time window into the past, a past where he had been happy, even though his family had all sorts of secrets, when he had had Ian and Jack and no matter what happened, everything would always be okay if they were there.

Alex missed his uncle. He missed him a lot. Even though the man had lied to him and basically manipulated him into training to be a spy for fourteen years, Alex still missed the man who had raised him.

And it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that he had to lose both Jack and Ian, that he couldn't even win a little. It just wasn't fair!

Alex watched Michelle blow Maddie up with a glowing blue grenade, and winced as the latter respawned with a rocket launcher. This would be good. She got Michelle reasonably quickly, but Michelle had the luck of finding a sniper rifle quickly after her next spawn, taking Maddie out three times in a row before Maddie managed to end her killing spree.

It was violence that quickly surpassed friendly rivalry to the point where Alex wondered if he was going to need to pull the girls apart before they were through.

Thankfully, when Maddie hit her 50th kill, the game terminated, and a new one started. As they waited for it to load, the two girls high fived, and Michelle went on a run for juice, asking Alex if he wanted any. He declined and gave up all pretension of studying as he watched the two siblings clash again.

He vaguely wondered if their parents were training them as Ian had trained him. It wasn't too much of a stretch that killers might use simulations to train their kids used to killing. People were always complaining about how kids learned violence from video games, after all. Alex bit his lip. It wasn't his business if they were, he told himself firmly. He had nothing to do with it. And if the girls happened to know more about explosives than math, well then… they'd be better equipped to handle their parent's enemies that might come after them.

At nine, he reminded the girls their hour was up. They groaned but gamely turned off the T.V. Michele pulled out a tool set, and that was when Alex got worried.

"Uh, Michelle, maybe you shouldn't do that?" he suggested as she got to work pulling apart her computer.

"Nonsense, I'm halfway through expanding my memory capacity by over three hundred percent, so hush."

Alex felt the pit in his stomach sink a little further, watching her tiny hands work the small pieces of machinery that made the laptop work.

The two girls went to bed when Alex told them too, making him peer at them suspiciously over the top of his textbook.

He needn't have worried though; the rest of the evening was quiet, and Alex biked home at eleven, after being paid by a grateful and slightly more composed Claire. He promised to come the day after next, and was back at his flat at a quarter to midnight.

Anish still wasn't there.

Alex frowned but went straight to sleep. It had been a long, exhausting day, and he needed to sleep. Besides, tomorrow was going to be an even longer day – tomorrow, he was going to find out what the staff of the Queen's Apple was hiding, and he was going to do it with good, old-fashioned spy work.

He was, after all, Alex Rider.


	5. The Winds That Herald

Operation: Scorched Earth – The Winds that Herald

**So this chapter is unbetaed, because I wanted to get it out ASAP. Any and all mistakes in this chapter are my own. It is also very very long, one of my longest for this story (at just over twenty pages… O.o). Nevertheless, sorry about the wait, my plotting for world domination has picked up a bit lately-*AHEM*- I mean I've had a lot of schoolwork.**

**-*Evilsmirk*-**

**Please enjoy this latest chapter while I sit back and steeple my fingers that is in no way sinister or reminiscent of a hack Bond villain. This one's for all of you reviewers out there (you're my favorites!)!**

…**.**

Anish was waiting very patiently for the staff of the Queen's Apple to make a mistake.

He was perched next to a dumpster, hiding in the shadows. He had been intently watching the back door of the pub for hours, trying to figure out exactly what was going on here, and how his young charge fit into whatever that was.

Around one, he had seen a truck pull in next to the door, and several people emerged, helping the driver unload a series of crates, and wheel them into the building through the back entrance. He hadn't been able to catch a glimpse of what was inside them, and not a single word had been exchanged through the whole procedure.

By three in the morning, Anish decided to give up his spying as a bad job for now. He was cold, tired, and there were pins and needles running down his right arm, lingering pain from his injury. He would come back tomorrow, see if he could gather any more evidence. Perhaps he could solve this mystery soon.

If he was allowed to stay in Manchester, that was.

Anish had received the communication that very morning – he was expected to report in at headquarters in two weeks at the latest. He didn't have time to waste; he needed to figure out what was going on with this pub, and get Alex out of trouble, preferably before the teenager ended up biting off more than he could chew.

Biting back a groan from the strain of moving after remaining still for so long, Anish pulled himself to his feet and began heading back to his car, which was parked a few streets over.

How was he going to tell Alex that he had to leave? Normally, Anish would have just gone without so much as a backward glance, but this was different. There wasn't any use pretending otherwise.

Alex was special. He was quick – both physically and mentally – and he was experienced. The kid was probably one of the single most valuable intelligence assets in the world.

Small wonder MI6 wanted him back so badly.

Small wonder Yassen Gregorovitch had given Anish the order to recruit Alex by any means at his disposal.

That was his mission, after all. Turn Alex to the dark side. Not that Alex needed any help. All Anish had to do was seal the deal.

The problem was that Alex wasn't just an asset, and he would never be just a mercenary either. The teenager knew how to find the worst sort of trouble, and usually ended up pitched into it headfirst with no warning. Anish couldn't help but worry about Alex, and want to protect him.

Unfortunately, it seemed like the only way Anish would be able to keep an eye on the teenager was if he recruited Alex for the renegades.

It wouldn't be difficult. Alex had never really wanted to live on his own. He wanted freedom, not isolation. Freedom was something the renegades could give him.

They could also offer Alex something MI6 never could - friends. People who understood what it meant to always live in the shadows, to always be hunted… people like Anish.

Give it a day, or a week, or a month, but Alex would follow Anish back to the renegades.

Anish bit his tongue as he started the engine of his car. On the one hand, he hoped Alex did join the renegades. He liked the teenager, and Alex definitely needed looking after sometimes. The kid still thought that he had to take the entire world on his shoulders. Case in point – his stubborn inability to ask for help, even when he knew he was in over his head.

On the other hand… the renegades would use him just as MI6 had. They would be more open about it, and perhaps Alex would prefer that, but if Alex signed away his life to them, he'd probably hate himself for it.

Anish shook his head, trying to clear it of his circular thoughts, and drove home.

When he got back to the flat, he found Alex sleeping peacefully, sprawled over the couch. He frowned at the sight of the teen, who's limbs were splayed in multiple directions, his blanket half on the floor.

Quietly, Anish stepped over to the couch, and pulled the covers back over Alex, doing his best not to wake the sleeping teenager.

"Sleep tight Alex," he murmured.

Anish stood, feeling a little silly. He had killed before. He'd slaughtered men with his bare hands, and shot them with sniper rifles. He was a paid killer. And here he was, tucking in a teenager.

_The entire world is mad, _Anish thought.

….

Alex woke to criminally bright sunlight, and a resolve to figure out what the staff of the Queen's Apple were planning.

Nobody made a fool out of Alex Rider, not without consequence.

Anish was already making coffee in the kitchen a few feet away, and Alex stretched, inhaling the smell of glorious coffee.

"So, how were the twins?" Anish asked brightly.

"Good morning Alex, how are you? Oh, I'm fine, thanks for asking Anish? How are you this morning?" Alex snarked back.

A smile lit the corner of Anish's mouth and he turned away.

Alex was busy getting dressed, or he would have noticed the way that Anish's face fell slightly as he turned his back on the teen. He might have noticed the tense lines in the man's shoulders, or the way Anish was standing – completely neutrally, unprepared for an attack.

Because his back was turned, Alex missed all of these things, and by the time he looked over at Anish, the man had smoothed out any hint of agitation.

"I take it you managed to stay out of trouble?" Anish asked.

"Yes mum," Alex muttered, grabbing paper plates from the cupboard (he was still wary of any permanent dishware in the flat, and Anish applauded his caution). He ducked the mock blow Anish sent at his head.

"Whoops, getting slow there?" Alex grinned.

"Nah, you're just getting shorter," Anish shot back.

Alex let out a burst of laugher.

Breakfast was cheerful. Anish seemed to have forgiven Alex for his misdeeds – for now – and Alex wasn't going to complain. He needed Anish off his back if he was going to be spying on his coworkers.

Alex wondered what it said about him that he was excited to do some actual spying work for the first time in what felt like forever. Probably nothing good.

The teenager waited until Anish left for the day before grabbing a pair of miniature bugs and a receiver from the drawer in the kitchen. Because what's a little eavesdropping between colleagues, right?

Alex arrived at work five minutes early, and Piper let him in. Lina waved at him from the desk as he set to work cleaning the bathrooms and buffing tables. Alex smiled back.

The first bug was easy to place. He hid it behind one of the mirrors while he was cleaning the ladies room. With all the dirt and grease he had to clean out every morning, there was no way something illegal wasn't happening there.

Under the pretence of talking to Richard, Alex slipped the second bug into the crevice between the oven and the wall, hoping the heat wouldn't short it out.

Around ten, Piper sent Alex out on a delivery. About halfway to his destination, Alex pulled over into an alley and examined the contents. His curiosity was killing him, and he just knew there was something off about these weird deliveries. He pulled open the white carton and stared down at what was inside.

Shepard's Pie.

_Hm, looks pretty dangerous, _Alex mocked himself. He didn't know what he had expected… drugs, maybe? Something damning anyway.

_That would have been too easy, _Alex thought. Weird though it might be to run deliveries at ten in the morning, it seemed like the Queen's Apple just had an odd clientele.

_If they're legit, I'm a teapot, _Alex thought, dropping the food off and getting the money. On the way back, he activated the receiver to see if he could get any good intelligence.

"-three steaks with a side of mash potatoes, ready to go!" Richard's voice boomed. He kept up with a string of orders, and Alex guessed that he wouldn't learn anything interesting from that bug. He switched over to the second frequency.

"…of lipstick make me look like a clown?"

"No, but if you don't get back to the register within the next five seconds I'll gladly twist you up like a balloon animal," Piper's voice cut off Lina's worries about the shade of her lipstick (which Alex couldn't help but notice was extremely red in a very nice kind of way, not that he was looking or anything).

_Well, at least the bugs work, _Alex decided. He heard a few more short conversations from the mic in the ladies room, but he realized that it too wasn't yielding anything useful.

_I guess I'll just have to wait until closing time before they give up whatever they're up to, _Alex thought, feeling incredibly stubborn. This would be a million times easier if he just involved Anish, who was a trained professional and could probably figure out what Piper was up to in seconds.

The rest of the day was uneventful. Alex ran another two deliveries, neither of which were suspicious. He listened in on the bugs when he had a chance, to get away from his coworkers, but he didn't hear anything other than inane chatter and Piper being her surly self.

_Nobody could be that grumpy all the time, _Alex groused as he was sent up mop up another section of floor. He briefly wondered if any of his suspicions were related to the fact that he kind of hated his boss, but he tossed that thought. His gut had been screaming at him for weeks now, and he'd waved all the suspicious signs before.

When he was dismissed for the day, Alex biked off towards the flat. He knew Anish wouldn't be back yet, and he wanted some time to listen to the bugs he'd placed in the pub.

Alex turned on the receiver and left it on as he pulled out the pots and pans that had been designated as safe for human consumption. Having spent exactly one afternoon making napalm in this flat, Alex was forced to wonder if the last occupant had been planning to wage war against the government single-handedly.

_Yeah, not what you're trying to do at all, _Alex thought, snickering to himself. This was really just in case anyway. But since Alex had no idea what this situation might call for, and very few situations couldn't be simplified with a fiery explosion, he figured it would be a productive way to waste time until he heard something valuable.

Several times over the course of his missions, Alex understood that most of what spies do entails a lot of waiting around, punctuated by brief periods in which someone is trying to kill you. So while he wasn't exactly thrilled to spend the afternoon sitting by a receiver, he was used to the procedure. He ran through his kata while the napalm gelled, and even managed to do a review section while keeping an ear out.

Still nothing.

The conversations on the other side of the radio were completely innocent. Alex kept the receiver going early into the morning; he had about a week of juice on the bugs he had planted, so there was no need to be stingy with battery life.

He might as well not have bothered, however; he heard nothing productive the entire night. And though Anish remained out late again tonight again, he heard nothing of import from the bugs. Had they been found?

Alex returned to work the next day, but he couldn't see any sign that would tell him that his coworkers knew anything about the bugs he had planted. In experienced agents, there were always tells – a glance over to where the bugs were concealed every now and again, for example – but he saw none of those in the employees of the Queen's Apple.

Which was either comforting or terrifying, given that they could either be ignorant or highly skilled at stealth. Alex already knew that they had found a gun on him at some point, so they had to be suspicious of who he was. He'd seen no signs of that either.

So ignorant, skilled, or both? Alex ground his teeth in frustration. He'd gotten a call from Claire asking if he could babysit again, so he hooked up the receiver to a pair of headphones, and listened in while he watched the twins. Maddie and Michelle were frighteningly mature for their ages, though their age often shone through when they were playing computer games or chasing each other in the yard.

By the third day, Alex was ready to pick off one of his coworkers and punch the answers out of them.

Alex had spent most of the morning trying not to kill someone out of frustration. He probably would have ended up doing something incredibly stupid if he hadn't gotten a breakthrough while he was biking over to babysit the twins for the second day in a row. He was listening to the receiver through the headphones again, which was how he managed to catch a snippet of conversation that gave him his next step forward.

"There's a new shipment coming tomorrow?"

"Yeah, at midnight. Sale's this weekend."

"Good."

That was Piper and Richard, the cook. Alex frowned. What kind of shipment were they talking about? Drugs? Guns? Table salt?

Whatever it was, it was being shipped in tomorrow, and Alex would be there to find out. Alex his bike against the wall of the house and rang the bell. Claire waved him in, her purse already in hand. She thanked Alex and headed off, leaving Alex with the kids.

Alex barely remembered anything about that evening. His head was awash in possibilities and plans, trying to figure out how he should handle this.

He spared a thought over what could possibly be taking so much of his roommate's time. At first, Alex thought that Anish might have gone after his coworkers at the club. The mercenary had definitely sensed that something was off about the story Alex had given him after coming home drunk.

But that didn't make sense, because if Anish was taking up his time watching the pub, Alex was sure he would hear about it. Anish wasn't that charitable. He did kill for money, after all. The Indian was probably taking an assignment on the side, given that his arm was healing very well. At the very least, he was packing heat to use in both hands these days, from what Alex could tell when the Indian left the flat.

The next day was incredibly long. Alex tried to stay natural and remain calm, but the excitement of the mission was flooding his veins. It was all he could do not to give himself away.

Alex spent his evening arming himself. This was supposed to just be a recon job, but given the sheer number of Alex's assignments that had started out just as innocently, he made sure that he had some firepower on his side.

He arrived back at the pub at eleven, setting himself up on the roof of the building across from the pub. He had taken a pair of night vision binoculars, gambling that the pub was not equipped with walls that could conceal heat signatures. It was a gamble that paid off – it wasn't. Alex could watch the vague shapes moving around inside the building and have an idea of where people were.

At exactly midnight, a large delivery truck pulled up. Alex put the binoculars to his eyes, and the truck lit up with reds and oranges.

So they were shipping something that either needed to stay warm, or that gave off a heat signature. Drugs maybe? Alex was going to need a closer look, now that he knew where the truck was pulled up.

Alex took the stairs two at a time, though he was very careful to look natural as he exited the building in back. He circled back to the end of the block so that he could get to the parking lot of the pub from behind. He was panting slightly by the time he crouched in the shadow of the building next to the pub.

Piper was waiting outside, watching as Rich loaded several crates into the building. They were covered in dirt, and in the light of the pubs back light, Alex could read the wrapping that identified their contents as topsoil.

_So that's how the loo gets so filthy, _Alex thought. The dirt that was surrounding whatever was inside those crates must be responsible for the filth Alex cleaned out most mornings.

Why would a pub need this much dirt? Alex frowned. Something was definitely wrong here.

Alex's instincts were vindicated a minute later when he heard the sound of a child sobbing.

At first, Alex thought that it might be the sound of a cat, screeching in the night. But the wail was punctuated by several hysterical gasps, and the sound of banging from inside of the crates. Piper swore, knocking Richard over in her haste to get to the crate. She didn't even break stride, simply tore the crate open. With a smooth gesture that spoke of experience, she drew the weapon at her side and fired. Alex heard the almost soundless whisper of a dart gun being fired, telling him that the kid inside was drugged, not dead.

He stared in shock, trying to sort out the rage of emotions that were swarming in his head. Now, at least, he knew what his coworkers were up to when he was gone.

They were running human trafficking ring.

_Seriously? _Alex thought. Fear and incredulity were quickly replaced by anger. His blood felt like it was boiling in his veins.

Alex knew then, without a doubt, that he would never be able to tolerate the sound of a child in pain. He wouldn't ever be able to watch any kid cry without helping, no matter what. He had suffered so much during his young life that the idea of a child in pain twistd his gut in a way no other atrocity he's been forced to witness can. And this… kids packed into crates in order to be sold…

_Every time there was dirt in the loo, I was cleaning up after a delivery of kids, _Alex thought, the very idea making him want to scream.

He raised his gun. There was only one thought running through his head, and that was the idea that the world would be a much better place to live if Piper wasn't in it. He had killed Kony, and he had no problems taking out this bitch that was selling children to the highest bidder.

Some people, like the board of Scorpia, required planning to take out. Deception, stealth, and highly trained spies were the only way to bring down organizations like that. Problems like Piper were best solved in the manner of Alexander's solution to the Gordian knot: rendering the entire problem moot.

Before he could take the shot, however, he heard the sound of a clip being loaded behind him, and tensed.

"Drop it," a familiar voice said.

"Nice to see you Fred," Alex replied frostily. The man behind him was helping Piper sell children, and he had no problem going through Fred to get to the woman in charge either. Some part of Alex was afraid of this incredibly cold side of himself, but it was buried deep enough that Alex simply pushed it away for the moment.

"Drop your gun Michael, we're not after you, we're here for her."

"Yeah, I believe that," Alex said, not even turning. Piper, oblivious to the threat on her life, was already back inside pub, and the van was driving off. Alex had lost the shot. Damn.

"Fuck," he cursed, turning around to find himself facing Fred, Ginger, and Lionel. "Give me one good reason not to kill you where you stand. I had the shot."

The three young adults exchanged looks, and it hit Alex in the face like a ton of bricks.

They really weren't working for Piper. The entire set of their bodies didn't match up with that of a trio of guards coming across a trespasser – they were dressed in dark, neutral colors, carrying surveillance equipment. Their stances were on guard, but not overly hostile. Most importantly, Frank's voice was still quiet. They hadn't raised an alarm yet, and Alex was sure they would have if they were working for Piper.

"We want Piper alive, and we want her ring of contacts," Ginger said at last, breaking the silence. "We want to bust Piper in the act, so we have something to hold over her head and wrap up her entire gang. Stopping you from killing her makes that possible."

Alex's stomach dropped uncomfortably. These guys were law enforcement? Shit!

"Uh, that sounds great, good luck with that," Alex said, taking a step away. "I really kind of have other stuff to do and-"

"Actually Michael, I think we need to have a bit of a talk," Fred said. His gun was still pointed at Alex, just as Alex's gun was still trained on the three agents. Alex was freaking out just a little. If these guys were MI6, or any kind of governmental agency that worked with them, he was as good as dead. He couldn't let himself be taken in.

"My schedule is kind of busy, maybe later?" Alex asked, trying to stall for time. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure none of Piper's goons were coming back, wanting to get out of this situation before it was complicated by any more guns. In doing so, Alex missed the shot Lionel took at him. Alex stumbled back a step, looking down at the dart in his chest.

The teenager swore hazily, and collapsed. The last thing he saw was Fred's face leaning over him, etched with something bordering on concern.

….

Alex awoke on a couch. He wasn't handcuffed or tied down, which was a rather welcome surprise given the circumstances, but he still hurt from being forcibly knocked out. A quick check told him he had a colorful bruise where Lionel's dart had hit him.

That was good news, because surely if these guys knew who Michael Cooper really was, they would have tied him down or something. At the very least, Alex would try and keep up the Michael Cooper act until he knew differently.

Almost immediately after Alex had risen, Lionel had entered the room, watching him carefully.

"Dude, what the hell?" Alex asked, mentally swatting himself for using the word dude. It still sounded really stupid to his ears.

"Sorry Michael, but we needed to have a conversation away from Piper's territory, and none of us could take the chance of you fighting back," Lionel said easily.

"Marvelous," Alex said, keeping an eye on Ginger and Fred, who come into the room as Lionel was speaking. "So you want to talk? Talk. What the bloody hell do you want with me?"

"Well, we could start by asking you why you were spying on Piper," Fred said.

"Something didn't add up, I wanted to figure out what she was up to," Alex replied without missing a beat.

"Bullshit," Lionel said, and Alex felt his heart drop into his stomach. Did they know? "Who are you working for Michael?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Alex spat, vaguely registering that they were still calling him Michael, which was a good sign.

"We know you're working for one of the local gangs," Ginger supplied. "We're not here to bust you for dealing or anything; we just want to talk."

Alex glared up at them,

"Say you're right," he said, allowing them to assume whatever they wanted for the time being. "What would we possibly have to talk about? The fact that you're letting a bitch like Piper live?"

"Piper is alive because we want her buyers," Fred explained. "Kill Piper and her network disbands, they kill all the kids involved, and moved somewhere else to start over. Get Piper and all her buyers, and we can clean up her whole ring in an afternoon."

Alex frowned. It made sense, actually. It was really smart. So these guys _were_ government types then, on some do-good mission from the DGSE or something, if Alex had to guess. He needed to get out of here now, before someone drew the connection between Michael Cooper and Alex Rider. He wasn't going back to MI6, not ever.

"Piper is having some kind of sale soon, isn't she?" Alex asked, already knowing it was true. Fred nodded. "That's when you want to hit her, but its invite only, and you're not on the list."

Another nod, and Alex bit his lip, trying to figure out exactly what they wanted from him. In the meantime, he decided to stall.

"So Piper gets deliveries of kids to the pub," Alex said, trying and failing to reign in his anger. "She processes them with the rest of her staff, and ships them off to some house somewhere where she can keep them all out of sight. Then what? How does she organize the buys?"

The three agents looked at each other, trying to decide how much to tell this teenager.

"Messages coded and hidden in the food," Ginger supplied.

_I knew something was funky with those deliveries! _Alex congratulated himself. He figured he'd hold off on the victory lap however, given the fact that Piper had tricked him for a month before he'd actually tried to see what was going on in the pub.

"And you guys are doing this because…."

"We're ABIN - Brazilian Intelligence," Fred said helpfully, and Ginger and Lionel nodded.

"We've been on the case for four years, integrating ourselves one at a time into her gang," Ginger said. "Our government has been trying to arrest her for years. She tried to swindle a mob boss back in Brazil, and he's raising up a stink about having her taken out."

Alex groaned. Fucking fantastic. He now recognized the pistol Fred had pointed at him back at the pub. IMBEL, standard issue for the Brazilian Military.

Excellent.

Even more excellent, all three of them had probably seen his photograph on the report MI6 would have sent out.

Meaning that they might already know who he was, and acted accordingly.

_I need an exit, now. _

"So you thought-"  
>"You looked like someone who came up on our international alert list." Fred said, shrugging, and Alex's heart plummeted. "Given that Piper's into some pretty serious shit here, I thought that it was a bad sign if an international criminal was working with her. Until now, her business has been mostly local. We heard rumors that she was looking to expand, saw you, and freaked out."<p>

"So should I be running for an exit because you think I'm some terrorist?" Alex asked. He counted three – no four – well, more like three he wasn't small enough to fit into the ventilation shaft anymore – escape routes from where he was standing, and he was mentally calculating which one he could reach fastest.

"Nope," Fred replied, still grinning. "It helps that we've had the chance to dope you up to get some answers. We know you're a thug and a gangster, but you aren't a terrorist."

_What?_

"You did what?"

Alex's voice was cold and emotionless. It has an edge that could be cleared for heart surgery.

"We questioned you under Sodium Thiopental," Fred said. "We also did a background check, and everything looked legit. You are Michael Cooper. Sorry about the mix-up. We tend to get nervous around guys carrying concealed guns."

"Isn't that kind of illegal?" Alex asked, sorting through this new information.

That must have been the missing night then, Alex realized. He'd been drugged back at the bar, and then taken somewhere that these agents could get some answers from him.

There was a part of Alex that was determined to grind Fred and his team up into tiny little pieces. On the other hand, it was good to know that they hadn't gotten anything useful from him.

_Maybe the sheer number of times I've been drugged has helped me build up some kind of immunity? _Alex asked himself with grim good humor. _I could be like Wesley from the Princess Bride! _

"Where we're from, laws are really more like guidelines," Ginger offers helpfully, calling Alex back to the moment. "We don't need the brainless idiots in monkey suits to tell us what to do."

Even better, these guys weren't just ABIN, they were rouge mercenaries hired by the Brazilian Secret Service. Awesome. So these guys had authority of a foreign diplomat alongside the ruthlessness of a paid killer. If Piper were smuggling anything else, Alex would have been tempted to just scrap the whole thing and let these guys handle it. But Piper wasn't going to be nearly so lucky as to avoid his wrath, even if these guys were convinced he was a spy from a rival gang.

Oh, how close that assessment was, and yet so far off at the same time.

"Right, well since you seem to have things covered," he said, taking a step back. He didn't like the way that Fred was carrying the weight of his pistol, like he was ready to shoot at any second. "I'll be off then."

"Well, like I said Michael, we need to have a conversation," Fred said. "Sit down a moment."

_Anish is going to kill me._

Alex sat.

"Piper is arraigning a major auction during the weekend, just as you guessed" Fred said. "All the shipments from the last several weeks are going to be put to auction; it's her biggest sale yet, and our best chance to catch her red handed."

"Right and that's lovely, but why the bloody hell do you think I can be of any help?" Alex asked, exasperated.

"We know that she's already made plans for you to be there as some kind of initiation," Ginger explained. "We overheard her talking about it with Lina. You are going to be our eyes and ears on the inside, since none of us can get close to any of the buys to bust her. Once you know where and when it's happening, we can round up Piper and her buyers."

"Pass," Alex said, privately thinking that he could probably bring Piper down faster on his own terms, especially if she was already thinking about integrating him into her gang. He definitely didn't need the added stress of the possibility that these agents might figure out who he was.

"Of course, we could always just turn you over to the authorities," Lionel added, offhand. "You are a gangster, and there's probably plenty of outstanding warrants for your arrest. Heck, I'm sure that with enough fabrication, we could get MI6's counter-terrorism people down here to make your life hell for a few weeks and -"

_Oh hell no. _

Alex had already stopped listening. This was a bloody terrible idea. Alex should fight his way out and walk away. He really should not get messed up in this game of politics and blackmail again. This was what he wanted to avoid when he left MI6. As soon as the kids were moved of the pub, Alex could blow it up with Piper inside, and blame it on a gas leak.

On the other hand, he wasn't likely to win that fight three on one, and he didn't fancy being shot by any of these agents over doing things his own way. Besides, they were probably just psycho enough to call in MI6 just to bother both of them, and that was something that Alex definitely wanted to avoid. For now, he'd play their game.

"Right, what do you need me to do?"

…

It wasn't quite dawn when Alex made it back to the flat. The barrel of Anish's pistol greeted Alex when he unlocked the door.

"Sorry I left the milk out?" Alex asked as Anish let him in, looking like he didn't know whether to smile or yell.

Alex glanced around the flat and realized that it was completely ransacked, with every heavy caliber weapon in the flat occupying any available surface.

"So you missed me," Alex said, trying to make light of the situation. He was secretly flattered.

"You should have called!" Anish hissed. "I saw you get shot with a dart and dragged off by some military types, and I was half convinced you were on your way to MI6!"

"Wait, what?" Alex demanded. "Go back a second. You _saw _me? What the hell were you doing, following me?"

"Since you seem to not be capable of going about any kind of day to day routine with any sense of self-preservation, yes, I was!"  
>Alex was speechless. He knew that Anish had realized something was off… but this took the cake.<p>

"You prat, I thought you were on assignment!" Alex snapped, angrier than he should have been. He didn't like the idea that Anish had followed him without his realizing it, and he was hurt by the notion that Anish didn't trust him to be capable of handling this.

"And I thought you had sense!" Anish cried out, obviously frustrated.

Alex sighed.

"Look, I've got this, okay?" he asked. "I've got everything under control. Can't you just trust me to be able to handle myself when I stumble into trouble?"

"It's not a question of trusting you," Anish responds slowly, sliding down to sit on the floor next to the wall. "I trust you to know what to do, and I trust you to do what must be done, but I don't trust that you'll always be able to rely on the marvelous luck that has saved your life so many times."

"Well, this time, it's not a question of luck," Alex said. "I'm helping the Brazilian agents spying on the pub a hand to get rid of Piper."

"You're doing _what?"_

The Indian mercenary was on his feet in an instant, his face wild.

"Anish, she's selling kids."

"I don't care if she's selling the bloody Queen, you're not going near that sale with a forty foot pole!" Anish raged. "Have you considered that the reason Piper might want to let you in on her buy is because she intends to make you part of it?"

"The thought occurred."

Alex's voice was calm. He'd already decided on the bike ride over that it didn't matter. He was going to help those kids, no matter what he had to do to make it happen.

"And have you considered the fact that your Brazilian friends might be trying to play you as well?"

"That occurred to me too."

"Alex, you can't seriously be considering this!"

"I am, and I'm going through with it," Alex snapped, finally past his patience. He stood, using the position to look down on the Indian mercenary.

"I'm not a child," Alex said. "I am a trained operative and I can take care of myself. Do you think those kids can watch out for themselves? Not bloody likely. If I don't save them, who will?"

"You're not responsible for this!"

"It became my responsibility when Piper decided to sell kids," Alex replied. "I'm going. You're welcome to try and stop me."

From the second Alex had discovered the truth about Pipers' operation Alex knew he would kill her. In a way, it was a relief that he could still feel that righteous fury and fear for another human being. Alex had killed a lot of people, some intentionally and some incidentally, but there was no escaping the blood dripping from his hands. He had felt nothing killing Kony, or the guards that had protected him, and there was a part of Alex that was afraid of what he was becoming.

A lifetime ago, Alex had looked at his numb reflection in the mirror of a bathroom in the CIA headquarters at Langley. The reflection of Yassen Gregorovitch had stared back out at him, and it had frightened Alex so profoundly that he had shattered his own hand breaking that mirror.

In a way, this wasn't just about the kids Piper was hurting, but also Alex. He had to believe that there was a reason he had all but torn out his own heart to become a killer. He had to believe that there was a reason he kept running, because if staying free of MI6 meant that he couldn't use those skills he had to be able to help people as well as hurt, Alex thought he might go crazy. He needed to save those kids, to see something that wasn't completely irredeemable in himself.

And that was something Anish - a man who killed for profit – could not understand, no matter how long Alex spent trying to explain it, so he decided that this conversation was over.

Alex stormed over to the couch, and threw himself under the covers. He wanted to see if he could grab some shuteye for what remained of the night.

Anish got up quietly and left after a few minutes, still fuming. His mouth was pressed into a tight and angry line, and he was about a second from deciding to just handcuff Alex to the table to force him to let events run their course.

Then again, he'd probably escape, and set the entire complex on fire while doing so, Anish thought. He frowned, wondering how it was exactly that he was supposed to protect this kid when he was so obviously determined to put himself in the most dangerous situations?

_That boy can be so infuriating!_

...

Over the course of the next week and a half, Alex often wondered how he hadn't realized that the three young adults were agents. They definitely weren't flawless at hiding their anxiety for the coming assignment.

Despite the fact that he was at least five years their junior, Alex had more experience than any of the three agents and was definitely handling the pressure than any of the three agents. Now that he was looking for it specifically, Alex caught Fred glaring at the back of Piper's head, and the teenager knew that he was thinking about how frustratingly easy it would be to just shoot her and be done with this whole mess.

But those weren't their orders, and once he was thinking a little more clearly, Alex knew that it was better to get the whole ring, not just Piper.

Scum of the earth she might be, but she wasn't working alone, and Alex wanted to make sure every person involved paid their dues for kidnapping children.

He babysat several times during that time, finally meeting David, the twin's father. He was a gentleman of average height and a military haircut. Alex wondered if he was playing mercenary for some foreign government at the moment, but knew better than to ask. The man had taken a moment to size Alex up before shaking his hand in a firm grip.

Alex did have a moment of fear one evening when Maddie was playing on the jungle gym out back, and Michelle dared her to try and jump from the top of it over to a tree about ten feet away. Alex hadn't heard the exchange, but he was immediately roused from his position on the back patio by the sight of Maddie leaping from the monkey bars. He was already halfway to the girl when she landed on the ground and screamed in pain.

It took Alex a minute full of gut wrenching fear to realize that Maddie's right wrist was simply sprained. It was the kind of injury that was incredibly painful but not extremely frightening in the long run, and he spent the next hour making sure she obeyed his commands about icing the wrist while Michelle hung onto Maddie's uninjured arm, apologizing constantly.

"Okay, let's get one thing straight," Alex said to the two girls. "If one of you dares the other to do something, I want you to stop for ten seconds and think over just how smart that dare really is, and then not do it, no matter what that dare is," he put on his best 'stern' face for the twins, who giggled, but nodded.

"Good, because if you little munchkins get hurt, I'm legitimately frightened of your parents," Alex shot back. Both girls stuck their tongues out at him, back in reasonably good spirits.

"We're not munchkins!" Maddie shot back by way of an answer.

"No you're monkeys, my mistake," Alex replied, eyes glinting, proceeding to tickle the life out of Michelle while Maddie laughed so hard there were tears coming out of her eyes.

That was how Claire found them, amicably eating ice cream and watching TV. Alex explained the situation to her while the girls got ready for bed, and Claire approved of his extension of their TV time to keep them occupied and out of even more trouble.

"Thank you so much for dealing with this Alex," Claire said as she bid the teenager a good night. "I'll speak to Maddie and Michelle tomorrow and see if we can't head off more incidents of this nature."

For his part, Alex remembered his own childhood with Ian, and he knew that if those kids were anything like himself, a sprained wrist would be one of the less strenuous injuries that the girls would acquire. Heck, high school football could be almost as dangerous as some of the vacations Alex had gone on with Ian. He'd certainly taken his fair share of blows in Karate over the years.

Then again, getting hurt because of sports and getting hurt because of a stupid dare were two very different things. Alex sincerely hoped that once the girls grew out of childhood, they would be smart enough to avoid doing stupid things.

_Stupid… so that would be doing something like trying to chase down their uncle's killer, right?_

Alex laughed outright at that. It had been an extremely stupid decision, but every time he tried to imagine what his life would have been like if he hadn't tried to find out what really happened to Ian, Alex realized that he couldn't. Perhaps MI6 would have picked him up anyway, or perhaps he would have gone through to college believing that his uncle really had died in a car accident.

There was, however, no way to change the past and find out. So all Alex could do was keep moving forward.

The next morning, Piper pulled Alex aside and asked him to pull an extra shift on Sunday. Alex Rider knew that she was inviting him to a slave auction in which she was going to sell of a bunch of little kids, and was just about ready to use the pen by the register to gouge out the bitch's eyes. But Michael Cooper accepted the doubled pay for that afternoon after grousing good-naturedly about the extra shift.

Anish became increasingly sullen as the date of the auction approached. Alex wrote it off as worry for him, since he was basically going to be painting a giant target on his own back. He hoped the mercenary got over it, because this was who he was: A spy. This is what he had been trained for his entire life.

He hoped Anish could understand that.

…

It was Saturday afternoon, the day before the auction, and tensions were high in the flat shared by the mercenaries. Anish was causally cleaning his gun, though Alex could read tension in ever line of his posture from across the room.

The sound of his phone interrupted their terse silence, and Alex dived for the device, grateful for any distraction he could get.

"Alex, thank god I reached you!" Claire practically yelled into the phone. "I've been called away for work, and I need to leave _now. _Can you get here soon? This shouldn't take more than an hour or two, and I wouldn't normally ask, but they've been sick with the flu since Friday, and I don't want to leave them alone."

Alex glanced over at Anish, who was sitting across from him. It was a fifteen-minute bike ride to Claire's house, driving safely.

"Be there in ten."

Alex explained the situation to his roomate as he grabbed his bag and raced down the stairs.

"Be careful, and keep me posted!" Anish called as Alex careened down the road. Alex waved to show he understood, but didn't slow down.

"And don't get killed!"

Alex decided not to validate that remark by commenting on it, so he just kept going.

He made it to Claire's house in just under ten minutes, skidding into the driveway.

"Number for the doctor is on the fridge, call if things get really bad, I should be back in an hour or two!" Claire said in a single breath as she ran past Alex. "Girls are in the living room!"

Alex waved and followed the sound of Saturday afternoon cartoons to their source. The girls were lying on the two couches, huddled under warm blankets with a rubbish bin beside them.

"Hey guys," Alex said. Maddie raised a hand in greeting and vomited into the bin at her side.

"Hey Alex," Michelle replied, definitely lacking in the energy that Alex was usually confronted with whenever he babysat the girls. "Good to see you."

"You lot are not having a very good week, are you?" Alex asked sympathetically. "First the sprained wrist, and now the flu. Anything I can do to help?"

"Nothing'll stay down," Maddie informed Alex. "Cartoons?"

Alex accepted their invitation, and settled into an armchair where he could keep an eye on both girls, and one on the Government textbook he brought with him.

At around two thirty, Alex's phone beeped. It was a text from Claire.

_Sudden complication. Plz stay w/girls if possible._

Alex bit his lip. 'Sudden complication.' Did that mean Claire's cover was compromised? That she was seconds away from being shot?

He couldn't worry about that, or it would drive him insane. Instead, he put away the phone and looked at the two girls. They had both fallen asleep some time ago, though they seemed rather restless.

Telling himself that he was _not _being a mother hen, Alex pressed his hand to Maddie's forehead to make sure that she was okay. His hand came away scorching.

_Okay, that's not good, _Alex said. He gently woke Maddie up and asked her where the thermometer was. She pointed vaguely towards the counter, and Alex found the device. He held it up for Maddie until it beeped.

102.5.

Okay, that was probably not good.

"Do you think you could stomach a popsicle or some ice cream?" Alex asked, hoping that something cool would help keep her temperature low. Maddie nodded wordlessly. Alex got a popsicle from the freezer for her, and repeated the process with Michelle, who's temperature was only slightly lower.

Desperate, Alex called Anish.

"Did you get them any meds?" the Indian Mercenary asked.

"I can't exactly give ten year olds aspirin," Alex shot back.

"They do make medicine for children you know," Anish drawled, and Alex found himself feeling really stupid. "Do you need me to come over to hold your hand?"

"I've got it," Alex scowled. "I don't know when Claire will be back, but I'll let you know."

"Good."

"And thanks, Anish."

"No problem," Anish said flippantly. "Better the flu than MI6!"

Alex found children's medicine in the cabinet, and figured out dosages from the wrapping. If Claire had given them medicine before leaving, they would need more medicine soon, and that would help regulate their symptoms too.

"My tummy hurts," Maddie grumbled when Alex came back in, feeling way over his head.

"This should help, I think," Alex said.

"Way to be encouraging," Maddie shot back.

"Trying here," Alex said, hoping that he sounded more confident than he felt. This was so far out of his comfort zone it was almost funny. The best he knew how to treat fevers was to make sure that they stayed hydrated, which was a problem when both girls were incredibly stubborn, and made even more so from being sick and in pain.

Half an hour later, Alex took the twin's temperatures, and their fevers seemed to have subsided somewhat. They slept until five, and they felt good enough to get up on their own to use the restroom and help Alex find soup to make for them. Neither was hungry, but Alex hoped that if they could keep some of the soup down, it would be good.

Claire hadn't texted Alex back, so he assumed she was still indisposed with her mission.

At seven, Alex took their temperatures, and was unsurprised (though frustrated) to find that they were back up to 102. He gave the girls around round of medication, according to the orders on the bottle. They didn't seem to be getting any better, however.

_They just need to ride it out, _Alex told himself uncertainly. He thought about using the number that Claire had left for their doctor. He pledged to himself that if they got any worse, he would call.

At eight thirty, Alex was starting to get nervous. There had been no change in the girl's conditions, and he hadn't heard anything from Claire in hours.

Where was she?

Alex couldn't help his imagination from showing him horrible images of Claire being killed and left somewhere she would never be found, unable to contact Alex. How long would David be out of the country? Because Alex was so not qualified to handle this.

At nine, their temperatures had subsided for a bit, and both girls got a few hours worth of uninterrupted sleep.

By the time the girls had woken up, however, their temperatures had rocketed up again. On his last bit of inspiration, Alex grabbed a pair of icepacks from the freezer, which seemed to give the girls some relief.

Around eleven, Michelle started screaming.

The sound made Alex's blood run cold. Michelle was clutching her stomach and had kicked off her blanket while thrashing around. Maddie was groaning in her sleep, and it was all Alex could do to try and settle them down again.

"Shit!"

Both girls were burning up again. Alex kept up a steady litany of curses. He had no idea how to tell what was wrong with them, but this was definitely not the flu.

He needed to call a hospital, get them a doctor or at the very least someone more qualified than him to handle crap like this.

Where the hell was Claire?

Michelle screamed again, and Alex decided that whatever Claire was dealing with at the moment, this was a definite emergency. He ran into the kitchen to look for the number Claire had left.

Alex's fingers fumbled trying to hit the keys on his mobile, he was shaking so bad. Terrorists, he could deal with. Gangsters he could handle. Two sick girls and a mysterious illness – that was beyond anything Alex knew how to fix.

A litany of curses ran through Alex's head before he locked the panicking part of his mind away in favor of getting help for the very sick children in the living room.

"Hi, I'm babysitting the Bernard twins," Alex said to the woman who picked up. "I can't reach their parents, and they're really sick. I think they need an ambulance."

The woman asked him several questions about their conditions, which Alex answered as best he could. She had the girl's medical papers, and releases from their parents to treat them, which was a relief.

The woman on the other end promised that an ambulance would be coming, and Alex went upstairs to turn his attention to his two sick charges. Both girls were whimpering in pain now, too exhausted to keep screaming.

"Hey loves, it's going to be okay," Alex said, changing the icepack on Maddie's forehead. "Just hang in there."

It seemed like an eternity before he saw the flashing red lights outside. Both girls had thrown up several more times, and Alex had been completely unsuccessful at bringing down their dangerous temperatures. Maddie and Michelle were sweating profusely and burning to the touch.

The paramedics who arrived wouldn't let Alex ride with them since he wasn't a relative, but told him that he'd be allowed to follow behind and stay with them in the hospital until their parents came. Alex was relieved – he didn't want to leave the girls on their own in a hospital.

Alex remembered how many times he had been treated in some anonymous hospital somewhere in the wilderness. He couldn't stand them. Waking up alone in a hospital was an unnerving experience for a bloodied spy – it would be just as frightening if not more so for the two young girls, mature as they might be. Alex was determined to stay with them to make sure they would get better, at least until Claire could come for them. Unfortunately, that could take all night.

He wondered if this was how Jack felt every time he got hurt.

Alex suddenly felt incredibly guilty.

Jack. She had crossed his mind so many times during the past months, though he found himself shoving thoughts of her away lately.

Alex was so preoccupied that he found himself nearly getting run over by a car when he drifted too far to the right. The sound of a shrieking horn drove Alex out of his pity-fest, and focused on the more proactive task of getting to the hospital on one piece.

_There's always time to hate yourself later if you're not dead, _Alex reasoned. It was a philosophy that had gotten him this far, after all.

The guard at the private hospital gave Alex a surly glare, but the paramedics seemed to have let him know that Alex was coming, and so the guard let Alex through with minimal trouble, despite the late hour – it was well past midnight by now.

Alex quickly found the reception desk, but the woman behind it was far less than helpful. The twin's paperwork wasn't in the system yet apparently. Or perhaps the woman didn't realize that Alex could see the reflection of the computer in the polished marble behind her well enough to know that she hadn't even checked.

He was starting to lose his patience when a passing nurse patted his shoulder and told him that the twins were being sent into surgery.

"Surgery?" Alex repeated hollowly. "No, you must be mistaken, they had the flu."

Their symptoms hadn't been very much like the flu, but they couldn't possibly warrant surgery, could they?

The nurse frowned and consulted her chart again.

"Madelyn and Michelle Bernard are both being prepped for surgery right now," she said, nodding at what she read there. "The paramedic diagnosed them with appendicitis. They need to have their appendixes removed now, or they're going to burst. Excuse me."

Appendicitis. They were having surgery to have their appendixes taken out. David was somewhere overseas, and Claire…

_Claire needs to know her kids are in hospital, no matter where she is at the moment. _

Alex made his way down to the nearly empty cafeteria and grabbed a table. He found Claire's number on his contact list and pressed 'call,' praying that he wasn't about to blow her cover. He had no idea where she was, or if she was even still alive, and there was a terrifying second in which Alex was sure that an unidentified voice would answer the phone, hands still wet with Claire's blood.

"Not a great time Bob," Claire's voice snapped through the phone. Relief flooded Alex, and he was about to correct her when he realized that she was probably still in a precarious position, and he had about five seconds to come up with a plausible lie that would also explain what was going on with the twins before her cover was blown. Luckily, Claire threw him a bone.

"It's over Bob, you have to stop calling me like this!" She practically hissed into the phone.

"Sorry babe, I just can't stop thinking about you," Alex said, catching on. Only his training stopped him from turning bright red. He _really _hoped David never heard about this. "I was watching this feature on PBS about how penguins mate for life, and how when a couple is separated, they can actually get physically _sick._"

Oh god Alex hoped she caught on to what he was saying.

"I'm hanging up now," Claire said on the other end of the line. "You should really get some help."

"In fact, they get so sick that sometimes their appendixes burst!" Alex concluded. There was a pause, and then the snap of the phone as it closed. It hadn't exactly been Alex's best plan, but he had managed to get the news to Claire without breaking her cover. Hopefully, the woman would survive long enough to get to the hospital and worry over the twins.

Alex sagged against the table, feeling spent.

_Bloody fuck. _

For good measure, Alex texted Anish, knowing that otherwise, the Indian mercenary might actually send in the cavalry this time. He was determined to stay here until Claire got here. He didn't know why he was being so stubborn about two girls he barely knew, who most likely wouldn't know whether or not Alex had even been there.

_But I would know, _Alex thought. _And Claire would. And despite the fact that I don't know the twins extensively, I want them to be okay._

Besides, even Alex was man enough to know when he'd been charmed.

Three hours later, Alex was still sitting there, surrounded by a mountain of empty coffee cups. It was almost one in the morning.

That was how Claire found him, striding into the nearly empty cafeteria, her high heels clicking loudly on the marble floor, bright red dress hugging her curves as she moved.

"You look chipper," she said, sitting down across from him.

"How are the twins?" Alex asked, making a face.

"Still in surgery," Claire replied, her mouth pressing into an angry line. "Their appendixes ruptured."

Alex nodded in sympathy. The girls would be up and about in a few days if there were no complications, but it was still relatively painful.

"They'll be okay though?"

"Oh they better be," Claire said, a hand resting on her purse at her side which most likely held her firearm. Alex would have laughed if things weren't so serious.

"Have you heard anything from the doctors?" Alex ventured.

"Not a damn thing," Claire said, her glare intensifying. "My children are hurt and being operated on, and I can't do anything about it."

Alex felt awkward in the silence that followed.

"Is there anything I can do?"

There was a pregnant pause.

"Exactly how adverse are you to shooting a doctor for me?"

Alex chocked on his last gulp of coffee, and Claire smiled apologetically.

"Sorry, couldn't help it," she said. "Um, coffee? If you could grab me a cup that would be an excellent start."

Alex made his fifth coffee run of the night, grabbing Claire her first. He didn't ask about the mission she was coming from. She was alive, which meant she was succeeded. He thought maybe he'd wait until they knew that the twins were okay before he pointed out the splatter of blood behind her right ear.

"Thanks Alex," Claire said, inhaling the heavy scent of hospital coffee. She took a sip and her face contorted with disgust.

"This is not coffee," she said, giving it a glare.

"If it can't double as a surgical disinfectant, you're not trying to wake up," Alex shot back. Claire swore under her breath in French.

There was another very long, awkward pause.

"Do you want me to leave?" Alex asked quietly. Claire looked up at him, and for the first time that night, Alex didn't see anger in her expression. She was scared to death.

"Please don't," she said.

"I wont," Alex replied.

They waited there in silence for what felt like forever. It was probably around four in the morning when a nurse came through the doors, a splatter of blood on her shoulder. Alex couldn't stop staring at that red blotch.

"I called down to see if anyone knew where you were," the nurse said to Claire. "Madelyn is out of surgery and you can visit her now."

"What about Michelle?" Alex asked, because Claire seemed to be frozen in her position with her hands curled around the now cold coffee.

"Still in surgery," the nurse replied. "There were some complications, but the doctor is closing up the incision now. Both should make a full recovery."

"Where are my babies?" Claire asked.

"Two floors up, room 304," the nurse said.

Alex had never seen a woman move that quickly with high heels on in his entire life. He followed just behind her, as she raced up the stairs, too impatient to wait for the elevator. She composed herself outside the door to the hospital room and walked in.

Maddie was lying in the bed by the window, fast asleep. Claire sat herself down by her daughter and stroked her blonde hair.

"Oh Maddie," she whispered.

Alex felt a wave of relief in his heart. Maddie looked so small and fragile, dwarfed by the machines that were monitoring her vitals and helping her breathe, but the steady beeping of the machine testified to the fact that she was very much alive.

Michelle was brought in a gurney some minutes later, and hooked up to the same machines in a bed across from her twin.

"My babies," Claire whispered, and Alex turned his head away. Claire would not want him to see her cry, to see her in a position that was so bloody vulnerable.

Knowing that both girls were safe and in the clear was enough.

"Claire, I'm going to head home unless you need me for anything immediate," he said. Claire nodded. And then she stood up, and embraced Alex in a tight, grateful hug.

"Thank you for staying with them, and me," she said, and broke off. She glared at him sternly wiping tears away from her eyes. "Speak of this to anyone, and I murder you in your sleep."

Alex grinned and saluted her.

It was probably not one of Alex's more intelligent ideas to bike home in that state. Loopy from the lack of sleep and the stress of the last day, Alex wasn't exactly thinking clearly. He made several wrong turns, and was extremely lucky that the traffic was pretty thin, or he probably would have ended up in an accident.

It took Alex nearly three times as long as it should have to get back to the flat. The sky was already beginning to lighten as he locked his bike up downstairs. Wearily, Alex climbed the stairs to the flat and unlocked the door on his second try. He was exhausted.

"Hey Anish, I'm alive!"

The flat was silent and dark.

"Anish?"

Alex flicked on a light, illuminating the empty flat.

"Come on, this isn't funny!" Alex called, his heart racing just a bit. Did Anish run into trouble?

He darts into the mercenary's room, pulling open a drawer to make sure that his stuff is still there.

It's empty.

Alex pulls out all of the drawers and turns over the flat for a sign of the Indian before he finally settles at the kitchen table, feeling very alone.

That's were he finds the note.

_Time's up. Bosses want me back on the job. Watch your back kid._

_~A_

Alex stares down in disbelief. He had known that this was a temporary assignment. He had known that Anish would have to go back to the renegades at some point, especially now that his arm was healed.

Even so, it feels like abandonment.

Alex doesn't know how long he spends staring at the note before the alarm on his phone buzzes, startling him out of his reverie and reminding him that he has to get to work. The auction is only in a few hours. Alex knew that today was going to be one of those days where the universe decides to just pile everything on him.

"Bloody hell," Alex mutters, taking a last look at the note. He tears it up and tosses it.

He can deal with his personal issues later. The storm is here, and he needs to be ready.

If he was alive tomorrow, he could deal with everything else then.

…

"Is that him?" Wolf asked staring intently at the CCTV picture that Ben Daniels had shoved under his nose.

"I think so," Ben said. "Facial recognition came up with a partial match, but nothing definitive. Given as how we seem to be chasing ghosts anyway, I figured this might be as good a place as any to pick the search back up."

Snake and Eagle regarded the picture when Wolf handed it to them.

"Looks like him," Snake said. "Cub definitely grew into a looker, didn't he Eagle?"

The older soldier glared at Snake, but took his own close look.

"Could be," he said finally. "I haven't seen him in person since training though, so I doubt I could say for sure."

"Well, like Fox said, we might as well start here," Wolf said bracingly. "Where did you say this was taken?"

"Manchester," Ben replied.

"Kid must have some serious balls to hole up in MI6's backyard," Snake said.

"We're booked for a flight in two hours," Ben said, ignoring Snake's comment. "Pack your bags, be prepared for anything. We don't know what kind of welcoming reception Cub has prepared for anyone who comes after him."

Wolf nodded in agreement, still staring down at the CCTV picture.

He hoped for Cub's sake that it really wasn't Alex Rider.

…

**Ta-da!**

**~InK**


	6. The Storm

Operation: Scorched Earth – The Storm

**Um. Please don't kill me? I come bearing gifts! Unbetaed, long awaited gifts, but gifts nonetheless!**

*** hides ***

**Anyway, here is a new chapter of Operation: Scorched Earth, as my frantic battle with research papers and final exams finally ends. This is an exciting, long, action-packed chapter, so I hope this fulfills your appetites!**

**Oh, and as a side note… this isn't exactly how you make ammonal... But this should be close enough.**

…**.**

Despite the fact that he was approaching his twenty-seventh hour awake, Alex wasn't tired. He could feel the buzz of adrenaline running through his body as he armed himself.

Plans whirled through his mind as he thought through possible situations. He was always good at reacting on the spot, but it never hurt to be prepared.

Alex slid onto his bike.

_Let's end this. Today._

Alex could feel the familiar surge of adrenaline as he steadily pedaled towards the pub. It all came down to instinct now, instinct and luck.

It was for this very moment that MI6 wanted Alex so badly, this moment when all the research and preparation and information gathering was complete, and a mission came down to a Spy's split second choices. Agencies could train a spy to fight. They could train a spy to lie. They could train a spy to act a role, and give him tons of innocuous but useful gadgets, and give her the best support in the world.

But ultimately, a spy with bad instincts wouldn't survive the field. If Alex's instincts hadn't been telling him that something was up with Damian Cray, the psychopath would have succeeded with nobody to stop him. His instincts had told him to trust in Yedit's innocence, and in Yassen's desire to keep him alive, and each of those decisions had saved him at least once. Alex's instincts had steered him towards the right choices, and kept him alive.

The same instincts that had driven him to investigate his uncle's murder had told Alex to run for his life when MI6 wanted to send him off to Uganda. Alex wondered briefly how that scene would have played out if the renegades hadn't been there to get him out.

The truth was that Alex was an intersection of intense creativity, well-honed instincts, and the unique training that gave him a diverse set of skills on which to draw in any situation.

He was an invaluable intelligence asset, and MI6 would bend heaven and Earth to get him back, because a spy with the right instincts can work with whatever luck they got and find a way to still manage to get the job done.

Even so, Alex couldn't help but hope that MI6 would let him go. That after searching for long enough, they would just give up. He knew they wouldn't. He knew they would do anything to get him back.

But deep inside, Alex hoped that they would anyway.

Alex arrived at the pub shortly before work hours. He locked up his bike, and let himself into the pub, smiling at Lina (who winked at him over the cover of her compact mirror) as he did.

"Is Piper about?" he asked, settling into one of the chairs. "I'd assume she wanted me in for cleaning duty, but given that I'm not here on a usual day, it's probably best not to make assumptions."  
>"Nah, I don't think she wants you cleaning," Lina replied, shutting the mirror when she was satisfied with whatever makeup she had been applying to her eyes.<p>

"I certainly would prefer it if the cute boys would stay in one place for a while," she added with another flirtatious smile. "Makes it easier to oogle, and I like to oogle."

_I'm sure you do. Just like you _oogle_ children before selling them off you black-hearted bitch,_ Alex thought.

"Well, feel free to stare as long as you like," he said instead of giving voice to his thoughts, leaning back with a grin. "My body is a temple and all that."

"That it is," Lina said with a grin that was downright lecherous.

"So, do you have any idea what Piper has up her sleeves?" Alex asked with just the right amount of excitement and trepidation.

"Ye-es," Lina said, lengthening the word with an unnecessary syllable in order to add an irritating singsong quality to her voice.

"But you won't tell me."

"I would, but Piper's the one running this baby, and I'll let her do the honors."

"The honors of what?" Piper's grumpy voice came from the doors to the kitchen, surveying the teenager and young woman sitting in the pub.

"Just telling Michael here why we're waiting for you to come before I can explain today's special events," Lina said with a grin.

"Hmf, good," Piper grumbled. Alex realized that he had actually caught Piper in a good mood the day that she had hired him, and man that was weird.

"So Piper, I'm dying to know, what's the surprise?" Alex asked, leaning back in his chair. There was nothing about his body that could possibly project a lie, or any kind of deception; it was a good act, as good as the one Alex had pulled in Uganda to fool a series of gangsters and finally get close enough to kill a psychotic dictator.

It was a hundred times better than the pathetic floundering that had nearly gotten him killed going after Sayle. Alex knew that nothing short of his age had saved his ass.

"Well, the Queen's Apple likes to have auctions every now and again," Piper said. "Just to… supplement our income, keep the joint running. Why don't we step into my office, and discuss this further?"

As it turned out, Piper's office was in the basement of the building, full of cluttered filing cabinets and piles of unorganized papers. Post-it notes covered the wall behind Piper with notes with dates and times, some written in pen, some in pencil. Some just had simple phrases like 'fix toilet number 3' or 'write Lina's paycheck.' As far as Alex could tell, she hadn't taken any of them down for a good few weeks.

"I always mean to clean up whenever I come in here," Piper growled, moving a stack of papers off her chair and sitting down. "And then I made a note to hire someone to do it for me, and somehow that just seems stupid once I'm no longer in here, so…"

Alex shrugged.

"Hey, doesn't matter to me," he told her. "So, you were saying?"

"Yes," Piper said, folding her hands over a pile of documents. "I know that you have… unique… skills, working for the people that you do."

Alex froze.

No way. No fucking way Piper knew who he was. Yassen had guaranteed his documents were foolproof, and Piper – a fugitive from Brazilian justice and the cartels – hardly had the kind of resources that MI6 could bring to bear. If she could get through his cover –

"I have no idea, what you mean," Alex said, taking a seat with a smile. He needed to know what Piper thought she knew, and this was the way to do it. Hell, she was probably trying to rile him up just to shake the tree and see what kinds of secrets he was hiding.

"Oh please, I had you made the second you walked in my door," Piper rolled her eyes. "You're carrying, a 9mm at the small of your back, and a knife up each sleeve. You grab your forearms when you feel threatened, and I could see the bulge."

Interesting. Piper either hadn't noticed the gun at his leg, and the knife under his shirt, or she was trying to put him off guard. Her next statement made Alex relax minutely.

"I mean seriously?" Piper continued. "I looked into you. Teenage runaway, no dad or mom to speak of, living on his own, working to put himself through his exams… well, you're prime meat for recruitment. So, what gang feels that I've infringed on their territory, because I know for a fact that nobody working this area is in my business?"

And suddenly, there was a gun in Piper's hand, and the situation got a lot more dangerous.

Piper was – compared to most of the people Alex had faced off against – an amateur. She was little league compared to Alex's normal jobs, and she didn't know even a quarter of what she thought she did. She was a sociopath and an evil bitch, but Alex had far more experience taking people like her down than she had trying to defend herself from people like him.

So he slumped, caught out.

"Hey listen, it's not like that, okay?" Alex asked desperately. "It was a stupid decision, and they wanted me to come in and just shoot you!"

Piper's eyes narrowed.

"But I know you've got a better business going," Alex continued hurriedly. "Come on Piper, I ain't gonna rat you out, and like you said, I've got skills. I'm strong, I'm smarter than your regular thug, and I need help. I wasn't lying, okay? I just… Please?"

Piper considered him, and Alex knew she was going to put the gun down before she had even made up her own mind.

Piper liked people who deferred to her brilliance and skills. She liked people who needed her, who relied on her and gave her dominance over them. Alex had just handed her the rope to hang him with, and she was too high off the idea of control to even want to kill him before she figured out how to exploit it.

Besides, Piper hadn't called him here the day of one of her sales to make a scene. She wanted a recruit, not another body to hide.

She smiled.

"I knew you'd say that," she told him, putting away the gun. "It so happens I do have a job for you. It's even better money than you'd make now, and it's probably even easier. You ever seen a slave auction?"

Alex's stomach twisted, but he smiled.

_I will kill you, you horrid bitch._

"No," Alex said. "Mostly ran drug deals, that kind of shit. Selling coke to high school students, it's like giving candy to a baby, I swear."

Alex's laugh was earnest.

"That's just little leagues," Piper assured him with her own smile. "I mean sure, addictions a good market, lots of repeat customers, but you have to stay in one place for a long time for it to be any good, and we're a bit more mobile than that. We're also quite a bit larger in scale. We have buyers coming all the way from China and the Middle East just to get a hint of the action here. We're exclusive, and every deal we make earns us quite a bit of money."

So maybe Piper was a bit of a bigger fish than Alex had given her credit for. Still, the bigger the criminal, the harder they fall, after all.

Alex was going to look forward to his Brazilian mercenary friends dragging Piper and her buyers off to face justice. ABIN would have a field day executing the criminals they could get away with killing and then turning the rest over to the ICC.

As soon as Alex knew where the site of the buy was, he'd tip them off and then get the hell out of there. Easy.

And he _still _had more backup than he ever had working for MI6.

"So how much do you actually make off each sale?" he asked.

"Anywhere from fifty to five hundred grand, depending on the kid" Piper replied.

"What's the profit margin on that?" Alex asked. His skin was crawling at the very thought, but he knew that wrapping up the whole operation was more important than just killing the bitch in front of him. His happy fantasies of smashing her face in against her own desk would have to remain fantasies. For now, anyway.

"Well, we snatch the kids on our own, bring them in over a couple batches and a few days, and generate about 2k expenses on each job, sometimes less, sometimes more. The earnings are split based on how much work you pull on a job."

Alex nodded, because that gave him an extra few seconds to stop himself from trying to kill the woman in front of him.

"The best is when we get the rich kids though," Piper continued. "Sometimes we'll call the parents to pay a ransom, and send Lina or I or someone else in as a 'cop' to negotiate their release. The parent's will cough up the ransom, but we sell the kid to another buyer anyway, and half the time I'll have a parent sobbing on my shoulder, thanking me for doing everything I could, while I'm sitting here thinking… this job just paid for my home in the Bahamas."

Alex had been wrong. Piper wasn't a terrible person. She wasn't just morally reprehensible. She was downright evil.

"Sounds like a sweet gig," Alex grinned, though the smile was a bit late in reaching his eyes. "Ever get caught?"

"Nah, we move around once a year, usually switch countries," Piper said. "Mostly we try and stick to homeless kids, you know, the ones nobody's gonna miss."

"Then I just have one more question: where do I sign up?" Alex asked. He'd passed hurdle number one – Piper had no clue who he really was, and was just about ready to reel him in.

"You're in," Piper told him. "Like I said, we have a sale coming up today, and I'd like to give you a test run. But before we go, there's just one thing."

Piper pulled open one of the cabinets and pulled out a suit. Armani. Alex could identify it by look alone.

"We're walking in some pretty swanky circles kid, and the whole gangster thug look won't roll in these leagues," Piper explained.

_If I had a nickel for every time a rich psychopath gave me a nice suit, I'd have enough money to buy my own, _Alex thought with a mental eyeroll.

…

Alex got into a car with Piper. Apparently Lina and Richard and whoever else on their staff was involved with this auction were going their own way (though Alex was just assuming, he was hardly going to ask and make himself look even a little bit suspicious).

"One more thing though," Piper said, pulling out a strip of cloth. "I know you're on board, but I also know that you're a thug, and you can go running off on me at any point if you actually know where we are. Also, your phone?"  
>Alex handed over the device without a word, and tied the blindfold over his own eyes. If he showed even a hint of resistance, Piper would just shoot him. She wanted easy control, and he would be exactly what she wanted.<p>

They drove for about fifteen minutes before stopping, though Alex judged that the place where the auction would happen was only about five or ten minutes away, given that he could tell Piper was engaging in some serious defensive driving. He felt left turns without signals, and sharp U-turns designed to confuse and ditch a tail. Alex hoped the Brazilian authorities weren't stupid enough to follow Piper's car now, with him in it, because the best they would do is get themselves and him killed.

Piper got out of the car and went around to Alex's door. She pulled him up by the shoulder and led him into the building.

"Just a moment, we're headed down some stairs, and then I'll take off the blindfold," she told him sternly. "Come on."

Alex nearly stumbled on the last of a series of steps on a spiral staircase. The floor was plush carpet, which read residential house more than restaurant.

He heard a door close right behind them (heavy wood, probably inlaid with metal, from the sound as it closed), and then Piper pulled the blindfold free.

The huge basement was spacious, with a gleaming wooden floor decorated with ornate rugs. A crystal chandelier was hanging from the ceiling, glittering with light, and men and women in starched white shirts and well-fitted vests were preparing platters of mini-quiches, bits of lobster, and champagne. A string quartet was setting up in the corner, getting ready for the big event.

This basement was the perfect gathering place for illicit deals.

What really made Alex's blood boil, however, was the fact that along every wall, a series of cages had been built. Each one housed anywhere from one to three children, totaling around twenty five, though Alex couldn't be sure because their battered, filthy forms were huddled together with fear and exhaustion.

Alex had to fight his instincts to turn around and tear Piper's throat out. He was a spy, and he would do the job _right, _and while he desperately wanted Piper dead, his instincts were telling him to wait until he had the buyers rounded up. He glanced around, fighting back the bile.

There were two entrances. One was the door behind him, and the other was on the other side of the room, leading to some kind of kitchen, from what Alex could see as people went in and out with their platters of food and wine. Alex didn't know if there was a way out through the kitchen, but if he was given even the slightest chance to find one, he would, because that door was looking less and less viable as an escape route, what with Richard standing right next to it, presumably armed to the teeth.

"So where do you need me boss?" he asked instead.

"We got a last minute shipment in," Piper said. "Some government type. She was poking around our business, and we don't like that much. She's yours for the night – you keep an eye on her, make sure she stays put. I need to give you explicit orders how to do that?"

Alex's stomach plummeted.

"Nah, I got this," he said.

"Good," Piper said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Stick to her like birds on a rhino. I got other business to take care of before our buyers show up. She's over in the corner."

Alex made his way over, across the polished floor, and stared down at a young woman who was chained inside of one of the cages. She'd been gagged, and her bright red hair hung over tanned skin in knots.

She looked up at him, dark eyes wide and expressive, and Alex thought for a second that his heart had stopped.

Agent Yedit Shalom was staring up at him.

"Man, you have a _serious _gift for pissing important people off, anyone ever tell you that?" Alex asked casually. "I'm Michael, and you are in trouble."

Alex smirked in that self-centered, stupid way thugs had about them when they made a quid that they thought was particularly clever.

Yedit rolled her eyes, and Alex turned away. He couldn't risk any more conversation with that. Given that he was here, Yedit already knew that there was help on the way, and given that he was Alex, she already knew that he would do what he could to get her out of this.

About an hour later, the room started filling up. Men and women in expensive suits and dresses were filling into the room, mingling and chatting as they eyed the merchandise for sale. The string quartet picked up a soft, cultured tune that rose above the chatter and filled the room. Servers walked in and out of the kitchen carrying their platters. Alex kept a close eye on the door through which he had entered, a huge, mahogany carved door.

_This is so sick, _Alex thought grimly. When exactly an hour had passed, he took a few steps into the crowd, stumbling over the foot of one of the bigwigs that had just put away his phone. He apologized profusely, and got a glass of water before returning to the cage where Yedit was being held, just in case someone was watching and wondering why he had left his post at all.

"How's it going Michael?" Piper asked, passing by Alex a few minutes later. "Saw your tumble there, do I need to remind you to be on your best behavior?"  
>"No ma'am, I'm sorry," Alex looked down submissively. "Just needed a drink is all, didn't see the guy until I nearly fell on him."<p>

"Well 'that guy' is one of my top buyers, so why don't you just stay here and try to avoid antagonizing any of my other guests?"

Alex nodded profusely, promising to do just that. Once Piper was gone, he reached into his pocket and typed in Ginger's phone number in by heart. He sent her a message telling her to track the phone, and then dumped it into the trash can when he went to throw away his cup.

Ideally, Ginger, Lionel, and Fred would be here within the next twenty minutes. Meanwhile, he needed a contingency plan to get himself and Yedit out while the Brazilians cleared out the buyers.

Alex watched the crowd carefully, but he was distracted by Piper stepping up to the front of the room.

"Welcome, guests!" Piper called, smiling widely.

_Conniving bitch._

"We have a good selection today, and I'm glad to see you all here," Piper said. "I'll turn things over to Lina to lead our bidding."

Lina smiled and took Piper's place, looking very swanky in a bright red dress with a daring cut, and a pair of painful looking heels.

"We'll begin with lot number one. Ten years old, male, brunette, middle eastern, in good health, recently taken to the streets. Do I hear twenty thousand?"

Alex's stomach twisted painfully again.

The doors slammed open.

"Everybody freeze!"

_This was their plan? Fucking _idiots, _didn't they know anything?_

Piper had drawn a gun and fired before Lionel got more than a single step into the room. Ginger and Fred could be seen behind it, swearing as they tried to seal the door.

"Everybody remain calm, our security will handle this, momentary distraction," Piper growled as she stalked across the room, talking quietly into her phone as Lina proceeded to regain control and continue the auction, soothing their startled guests. A series of gunshots from outside, followed by silence, spoke of the Brazilian's failure.

_Bloody morons!_

Alex wasn't sympathetic to the mercenaries' fates – they had gotten what they deserved, as far as he was concerned. Idiots got killed in the field, and that was how it always worked. Their plan had been stupid.

And now Alex was on his now.

_Now we do it my way, _Alex thought bitterly.

All of the waiters had taken up positions inside or outside the room, protecting it from outside harm.

Which meant the kitchen was empty and free for Alex to examine.

Knowing that Piper had bigger concerns than a rookie gangster at the moment, Alex took his chance in the confusion to slip away from Yedit, giving her a look that promised salvation just as soon as he could manage it.

The kitchens were empty, and Alex rummaged around, looking for anything he could use as a weapon. Nothing struck out at him as being immediately useful against a large group of people, at least until he found a container of ammonium nitrate.

If Alex could find some powdered aluminum, he could make Ammonal, a chemical explosive almost exactly similar to TNT.

He could lock the adults in this room from the outside, and blow the place sky high.

Well, if he could get out of the room, and if he could get the kids out, because as much as Alex wanted Piper dead, he'd rather let her and her scumbag friends free if it meant saving the kids.

There wasn't any kind of real exit from the kitchen, but after two sweeps of the room, another option caught Alex's attention: A large grate on the wall to his right. Some kind of air conditioning vent, Alex figured. But either way, it was large enough to accommodate Alex.

Moving quickly, Alex grabbed a pair of scissors and used them to take out the screws on the vent. He threw them into the sink and pulled the grate up after himself, ensuring that nobody who came in would know how he left.

Crawling through the enclosed passes, Alex, grateful that he was still at least small enough to fit through this one, no matter how tight a fit it might be (and it was pretty damn tight as it was – Alex had put on a lot of muscle when he hit puberty, and had only continued to fill out since).

He exited the vent in the entrance hall, breathing heavily from the relief that flooded him. He'd been terrified of getting stuck halfway through the vent and dying of starvation or dehydration, whichever caught up first. The good news was that it would be big enough to get the kids out.

_If I were aluminum shavings, where would I be kept by a sociopathic rich bitch? _Alex wondered to himself. Probably the upstairs kitchen or study.

His first try was the right one. Alex found a metal container full of aluminum shavings in one of the kitchen cupboards, and grabbed enough to blow the entire block, and pocketed them inside of the Armani suit.

_I must so look like James Bond right now, _he thought as he checked around the corners to see if there was anyone approaching. He could just hear the theme song in the back of his head as he went over to the door leading down to the basement. He knocked out the two guards there, stole their guns, and hid their bodies on the stairs before pulling a bookcase in front of the exit. Because of the way that the corner turned right next to the door, even if the people inside managed to push open the door, it would stay propped shut.

Alex sealed the door. These people weren't getting out before he blew the place.

Returning to the kitchen, Alex began his preparation. There was enough equipment in here to make model number four from Yedit's little pamphlet on explosives one-o-one, and he went about it with smooth movements that belied his nervousness and urgency. He could hear the bidding continue in the other room as he boiled the ingredients, and his stomach twisted. He grabbed his stolen guns and quickly made his way into the room.

When he had what he needed, Alex poured the ammonal into several cans.

_Ammonal burns when ignited in the open, detonates when confined, _Alex remembered dutifully. He needed a catalyst for the explosion. Heat. Fire.

Alex lined the oven with anything flammable he could find, and put his cans of ammonal inside.

This was going to be the mother of all explosions.

How long would it take the open to get warm enough to start going off? Ten minutes? Alex decided not to chance it and grabbed the two stolen guns.

Showtime.

Alex moved silently into the room. He would start releasing the kids on the other side first, because they would need the most time to get out.

As he past cages, Alex whispered.

"As soon as you're free, get into the kitchen and climb to safety, okay?" he repeated that over and over as he headed to the farthest cage.

He fired, and the lock came free. The two kids shouted and ran.

All of the people turned towards Alex, who dodged two bullets that lodged into the wall behind him. He fired three times, opening two more cages.

Alex was grabbed from behind.

Kicking out, he sent Richard – his assailant - to his knees, twisting out of his grip and grabbing the man's gun as he went. Deftly, he bent and flipped the man over into the crowd and turned the gun on Piper.

He fired, and didn't miss.

Blinding pain pierced his side, and Alex had enough time to realize that he'd been shot before falling to his knees and remembering that his fuse was about to blow. He fired another clip, catching Lina in the leg and killing Richard and two of the serving staff. He stole another gun and shot the locks off each of the cages.

"To the kitchens, come on!"

Some of the buyers were making grabs for the kids, but bless their hearts, the kids weren't going easy. They struggled and screamed, and Alex killed every bastard that he saw grabbing at a child. Some shouted as they pounded on the door. Others went for weapons of their own, or called into cell phones.

No help they called would make it in time.

Alex turned the oven up to 600 degrees as he helped the kids get up into the air conditioning shaft.

"Keep climbing and when you get up, don't stop. Get out of the door and run," Alex told them. "The police will come if you hole up close by, they'll get you back to your families, or find you somewhere. Keep moving, and don't stop. Don't stop."

"If it isn't the rogue spy, playing the knight in shining armor," Yedit said from the entrance to the kitchen as Alex lifted up a six year old girl into the vent. She had a gun and was shooting from the entrance, covering Alex and the children as they fled. "So what are you using to blow the place?"

"Nearly finished ammonal and some other shit," Alex said. There were four children left, and he looked into the shaft anxiously, checking how far the last child had gone. "Come on sweetheart, don't be scared," he said kindly to a twelve year old girl. "You're going to be fine, trust me."

Yedit laughed softly as Alex helped the girl into the vent.

"You big softie," she muttered, firing twice more.

"Anyway, the ammonal will burn off and crystalize under the intense heat, since I don't have time to do that properly. We should blow sky high in about five minutes now, so if we could-?"

Screaming from upstairs cut off whatever Alex was planning to say.

"Please tell me you got them all from upstairs," Yedit said.

"Bloody everlasting fuck."

"Go."

Alex climbed faster than he ever thought was possible, urging the kids in front of him to move faster. He came out firing, killing the four guards that had stumbled on the kids who were fleeing. Six of them were dead, including the small girl Alex had assured would be safe. His blood boiled.

"Come on, Yedit!" He screamed into the vent. A few kids were injured. He took two in each arm, and herded the rest out the door. One intrepid girl was already banging on the door, screaming for help. An older woman emerged, looking frightened at the children filling the street.

Two more armored men came around the back of the house, and Alex couldn't believe they were going to try and regain control by shooting _kids _in broad daylight, especially now that their boss was dead, but seriously, what the _fuck?_

Alex put down the children in his arms and fired. One went down with a bullet in his knee, the other caught one to the pelvis. Neither would walk again (probably), and Alex kicked their guns away as the older woman screamed and more kids started sobbing.

Alex saw Yedit diving out the front door just as the building went up in flames. He was knocked to his feet, hitting the ground hard. When he managed to get his bearings, Yedit was on the ground, unmoving.

On autopilot, Alex ran towards the assassin and pulled her arm over his shoulder.

"Alex? What?"

"Come on," Alex told her. "Police will be here soon, we need to be gone."

Yedit nodded, and the two of them limped together into the sunset, hiding in an alleyway as a police car passed.

"Those kids, do you think they'll be okay?" Alex asked. The bullet in his body was staring to take it's toll, and he needed something to distract from the pain that was beginning to cloud his mind. He would need to get it out of his body soon.

"For some of the younger ones, yeah, soon enough this will just be a bad nightmare," Yedit said. "For the others, especially the ones going back to the streets, I don't know. They'll hurt for the rest of their lives, but this shit is just the tip of a very nasty iceberg for them."

Alex nodded, unable to find the words anymore. The kids who had been slaughtered in the hallway because of his stupid decision to stay downstairs, rather than to first to clear the area and keep them safe…

Six kids would have gone home to their parents if Alex had managed to think that decision through. It was even worse negligence than that of the Brazilians, because at least they had only managed to get themselves killed in the process.

No, Alex had lived. But those kids had died because of his poor decision.

Still, he could do nothing more for them, and so he and Yedit kept moving as darkness fell.

…

The two of them tumbled to the grass in a local park, gasping for breath as they looked up at the stars.

"Are you still alive?" he asked the Israeli assassin. He could hear a snort from a few feet away, so he knew that she was okay. He knew she was probably burned from the fire, and battered from before getting captured and her intimate meeting with the asphalt outside, but she was going to survive.

"Good to know."

A hand found his, and they lay there together, holding on to each other. Both knew that their friendship was a bad idea. Even one human attachment could mean their death in the field. And even if they weren't used against each other, there was every chance that one day, there was every possibility that one day one of them would end up having to point a gun at the other.

And yet Alex couldn't help but hold onto Yedit's hand like a lifeline. It was a reminder that he was here, that he was alive, and there was a reason for him to stay free and on the run. It was a reminder that there was still a reason to keep fighting, because there was still some modicum of goodness and honor in the world.

They lay there, trying to get their breath back, trying to gather enough of their strength to make it back to their respective safe houses and lick their wounds.

"Do you ever wish things were different?" Alex asked quietly. "Do you ever wish that your father had never been director of Mossad, or that you would never have run away, or get involved with Muntasir, or rejoining the same organization that tried to kill you?"

"That's a lot of what ifs."

"Humor me."

There was only silence. And then-

"No."

Yedit's voice was amused, and when Alex looked over, he could see the smile on her face. "I do not regret any of those things."

"Why not?" Alex asked.

"Those things make me who I am," Yedit told him. "They make me strong. Do you wish that you have never been recruited to MI6?"

"No," Alex exhaled, and he was surprised to realize that it was the truth. "I can't even imagine what my life would be like now if I hadn't joined MI6."

That was true too. Alex couldn't imagine sitting in class, writing papers and taking tests and obsessing over current trends like some kind of normal kid. He had saved and taken lives. He had stopped wars and genocide and brought terrorist organizations to their knees.

Alex knew that he had done a great deal of remarkable and extraordinary things. Some of those things were terrible beyond words, and some too great for explanation. But every one of those things had shaped him into the man he was today.

"Hey Alex?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think there's a hell?"

"I don't know," Alex said, eyes tracing the constellations. "Whenever I meet people like Piper, I bloody well hope so. Then I remember that if there is, I've got my one way ticket to the fast lane down there, so maybe I shouldn't be so quick to judge."

"If it makes a difference," Yedit murmured, sitting up and dusting off her pants, getting ready to keep moving again. "If they do exist, I think I know where you're going to end up, and I don't think its hell."

She left him there in the darkness, and Alex stared after her, smiling slightly despite the burn from his injuries.

At least people who killed other people for money thought he was worth the air he breathed.

That was something. Maybe.

…

Somehow (and even days later, Alex was uncertain how he had found the will to managed it), Alex made it back to his flat, exhausted, injured, and in pain. He stumbled for the bathroom, because as tired as he was, he needed medical attention, attention that couldn't wait until he'd rested.

Alex hissed with pain as he reached to pull off his shirt.

_Okay, that's not going to happen, _he thought bitterly. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed the medical kit from the bathroom and set it on the kitchen table.

Alex had to pause for breath for a moment, composing himself.

_Step one, I have to get this shirt off._

Slowly, Alex cut his shirt away from himself, wincing as the fabric pulled at the edges of the wound. He dropped the bloodied and ripped up shirt into the bin, and examined the wound in the mirror.

_I should go to a hospital_

But he couldn't. Alex couldn't guarantee that MI6 wouldn't find him if he sought medical help, and so he was stuck patching himself up.

_Next step, I need this bullet out of my body, or I'll risk lead poisoning and infection._

Grabbing the bottle of iodine, Alex poured some of the alcohol on his wound, to kill any surface infections. That was the last thing he needed. The pain had him hissing curses across five languages, trying not to wake his neighbors.

When he was in control of his breathing again, Alex reached for the tweezers. He poured the alcohol over the implement, already hating what would come next.

_Steady, _Alex told himself. _You can do this. Nobody else can. You can't go to a hospital and all your allies are gone. So do it. The sooner you start, the sooner the bullet is gone and you can get better._

The tweezers halted over the site of his wound, and Alex was still completely shocked that he was stupid enough to try this on his own.

_It's this or risk losing your freedom again, _Alex told himself sternly, and reached for the wound. _Don't be a baby, just do it!  
><em>

The pain was incredible. It wasn't the worst Alex had experienced, not by a long shot (it was nothing like the pain he'd experienced getting shot in the heart - but that had been momentary. This fucking hurt, and all Alex could think was that he was essentially tearing apart his own skin.

Liberally relying on the mirror to correct his angle, Alex dug the bullet out of the wound. It took him almost a minute to find the bullet, which was deeply buried in his side, but with much cursing and self-inflicted pain, he caught a glimpse of silver. Alex tried to grip the metal with the tweezers, but it took him nearly four tries before he managed to drag the thing out of his body.

He was covered in a fine sheen of sweat and panting as though he'd just run five miles when he finally dropped the bullet into the sink.

"That wasn't so bad," Alex whispered to himself. Indeed, the ache in his side was reduced to an incredibly less painful throb, at least for the time being. He cleaned out the wound thoroughly, thankful that it wouldn't need stitches, and put a gauze pad over the entry site. Alex used surgical tape to bind it to his skin, and finally leaned back against the wall of the bathroom.

Behind his closed eyelids, Alex could feel tears welling up, trying to break free.

If only in the safety and privacy of his own head, Alex allowed himself to miss his family. He missed Jack's bright smile and unending energy. He missed all the mischief that Tom and he would get into together, and he even missed Ian. The man hadn't always been there, but he'd raised Alex, and Alex missed all the time that they had spent together. Even if the man was a grade A psychopath at the moment...

Alex knew what it was like to love and be loved and after that, being stuck up a creek without a paddle all by himself was frightening and lonely, and…

"And I want to go home," Alex whispered, letting one tear through.

But that wasn't possible. Alex Rider could never go home. Too much had happened for Alex to turn back. He no longer needed time to make his choice, because standing there in the kitchen of his flat, Alex knew that he had made that choice.

He would never go back to MI6. This wasn't a phase, it wasn't him needing time to make his choice, and it wasn't him making a choice by default, just staying away until he could never come back. Alex made the decision then and there that he would never work for MI6. No matter what carrot they dangled in front of him, no matter what stick they used to chase him around, he was no longer dancing to their tune.

Whatever the cost, he was going to be his own person.

Alex pulled himself upwards, packing away the first aid kit and throwing away all the trash. The kitchen once again clean, Alex went over to the bedroom and collapsed on top of the covers. Any other injuries he had could wait until morning to be taken care of, and honestly, Alex had been awake for so long he couldn't even stand it.

A moment later, he was asleep, undisturbed even as the clouds opened up and began to thunder and pour relentlessly onto the streets of Manchester.


	7. Radioactive

Operation: Scorched Earth – Radioactive

**WARNING for a super long authors note. **

**Because Tyz requested it (psst, hi, hey you! I haven't seen you in a while!), I'm writing up a summary of the road thus far, since I know it's been a long story, and a long time since our last update. So, literally, this is where we are, minus a few details (ALSO holy crap a lot has happened in this story, like where do I come up with these plot twists and how do you guys keep this stuff straight does less stuff need to happen this is a problem help)**

_Red Crescent_: A threatening note left on MI6's doorstep inspires Alan Blunt to send Alex to Egypt along with Ben Daniels and a Mossad agent accused of treason for sharing top secret military intelligence. Alex is forced to pick up a series of skills to help hide out as a terrorist, as he and Yedit are using the identities of a married couple that were infamous for terror attacks in the Middle East, and later learns that Yedit was actually the woman whose identity she has taken, having worked for Hammas for some time. Alex and Yedit are captured by insurgents after making their way across the border into Gaza, and Alex breaks out only to nearly die after being shot, and finding out that the stolen military secrets are nuclear launch codes. Yedit goes off to hold the Prime Minister hostage, while Yassen helps Alex escape Scorpia. The arc ends with the discovery that Yassen is working with a renegade group led by an assassin from South Africa, named Evert Zaaiman, and the Taliban hijak's Alex's plane to Heathrow.

_Bury Your Dead_: When Alex learns that his next assignment for MI6 will take him to Uganda in order to pose as a child soldier to get intel on a dangerous warlard, he and Jack make plans to flee the country. Jack officially adopts him through some less than upstanding legal loopholes, but before they can leave, Alex is kidnapped by Ian Rider, who hadn't been killed after his last assignment, but captured and tortured by Scorpia. Ian is attempting to forge an alliance with the renegades to take down MI6 and Scorpia together, but it falls through when Yassen declares that Alex won't be a part of the bargain. Alex is dropped (literally) at a local police station after Yassen shoots Ian, and only barely manages to escape from the CIA headquarters in Langley VA, after finding out he is wanted as a criminal after going MIA before his mission. He goes on the run, discovering that his uncle is buying up large stores of weapons – enough to fund a private war. Ian is being kept controlled and pliant through the means of an opiate drug developed by Scorpia's board. Minor skirmishes are taking place across the globe as the civil war inside of Scorpia comes to a head. Meanwhile, Jack Starbright meets police Captain Donny Walsh, with whom she forms a love connection. However, on their first date, she is kidnapped by Scorpia as leverage for Alex's cooperation with his own demise. Alex, who is staying at a safehouse set up by Mossad Agent Yedit Shalom, manages to fight back, and a team of FBI agents breaks into the warehouse where the battle is taking place. Alex once again escapes, this time by threatening MI6 with suicide. He returns to London, planning on using what he knows to stop Ian and Scorpia from destroying his homeland. Ian Rider is captured, and Tulip Jones, who has been increasingly against what her superior has been doing to Alex, hopes to find a way to prove the older Rider's innocence and save Alex from any further harm. She sends a discrete call to a friend at another agency, and then takes a long vacation. Meanwhile in London, Alex stumbles upon Scorpia's base and tricks them into trusting him. Alex steals top secret files from MI6 as leverage for his own protection, and bait for the remaining board of Scorpia, who are assassinated by the Renegades at the drop point, led by Zaaiman, Yassen, and the board member known only as the Australian. They offer Alex immunity from harm by them, as well as a new identity, if he kills someone who owes them money – the same warlord MI6 wanted him to kill. Alex performs the deed and ends the arc in the company of four mercenaries sent as a team to protect him once he'd finished the kill. Meanwhile, MI6 has decided to send an elite team into the field to capture Alex Rider, known terrorist and traitor.

_Scorched Earth_: Alex and the four mercenaries hop across a few national borders, attempting to evade their pursuers. MI6 catches up with them in France, after Alex has already been sent out to the airport, and only two of them leave the building. One (Anish), is gravely injured, and spends the next few months living with Alex as a roommate performing a simply job for Scorpia while still on downtime. Alex finds employment at a pub called the Queen's Apple, but after a few months of employment, Alex is concerned something strange is going on, especially after waking up after being 'drunk' with no memories of the previous night. While investigating, Anish assigns Alex to babysit the twins Maddie and Michelle Bernard, the children of two assassins that Alex grows very close with. Once Alex figures out that the Queen's Apple is a front for a child slavery ring, he is accosted by three of his coworkers who believe he is a garden variety gangster working for Piper, the head of the operation. Anish leaves to return to his work with the renegades, and Alex agrees to work with the mercenaries – who make fools of themselves and get themselves killed when the actual operation goes down. Alex swoops in and saves the day by trapping the buyers in a secure basement while helping the children – and Agent Shalom, taken prisoner by the ring for investigating their activities – escape through the vents before blowing the building up with a homemade explosive you should absolutely not try building on your own no matter how graphic a description I gave you. Alex is injured in the process, getting shot and scraped up before he returns to his flat where he pulls the bullet out of his side and goes to sleep.

**Oh, and if any of you are interested, I've been going through all the chapters of Red Crescent, cleaning up the story, patching some random plot holes, smoothing over the worst of my grammatical and spelling errors, that sort of thing, so the whole arc is starting to look much better now. **

**Anyway, go forth and read fiction! Thanks for sticking with this for the long haul!**

…

A loud knocking at the door woke Alex with a jolt.

Suddenly fully alert, the teenager grabbed the gun on the bedside table as he stood, wincing at the pull on his gunshot wound.

Alex's torso was covered in bruises and scratches from his intimate meeting with an asphalt street, but he was only a little worse for the wear, all things considered. He was definitely on top of his game enough to move silently from the bedroom and into the main kitchen area, already completely alert and ready for a fight.

"Would you just get over here and open the damn door?" A woman's voice called impatiently from the other side of the door. "I'm freezing out here!"

Rolling his eyes, Alex lowered the gun and tucked it into the back of his pants. Yedit. Right. He should have known that she'd find his flat.

"I should leave you out there!" Alex called back. "It would serve you right for stalking me!"

"Open the door Alex, or I will shoot you through it."

Alex pulled open the door, admitting the Israeli assassin into the flat. Her hair was an alarming shade of red that had to be a recent color, since it had definitely been a much more normal shade of dark brown last night. He glanced around outside, checking to see if there was anything out of place, or if Yedit had been followed.

"I'm not even going to ask how you found me, because I'm reasonably sure I don't want to know," Alex said, turning to face the other agent. "So what's up?"  
>Yedit grinned at him, before turning to rummage through his cupboards.<p>

"I wanted to thank you," Yedit replied. "The son of one of our diplomats had been grabbed by that slavery ring while he was visiting Britain, and if you hadn't shown up, we'd both be in a lot of trouble at the moment."

"He make it out okay?" Alex asked, the painful memory of the shot children flashing before him. He hadn't had much time to dwell n it before he'd crashed, but now the guilt came back to hit him full swing.

"Yes, he is fine," Yedit nodded, grabbing a box of cereal. "I'm hungry," she said when he gave her a weird look. "I haven't gotten the chance to eat since I got my charge back to his father."

"Use the paper bowls, we were never able to figure out which dishes had been used to cook up Nitroglycerin or plastique," Alex decided the fight wasn't worth it and settled on a smirk. Yedit gave the porcelain bowl she'd just grabbed a speculative look, gently sniffing the inside before putting it back on the shelf delicately.

"So, you are still alive," Yedit said finally, settling into a chair by the table with her paper bowl of Captain Crunch. "Congratulations."

Alex snorted.

"Is this the part where I have to warn you that if you start working freelance, you should avoid any jobs that take you near Israel, so that I'm not obligated to shoot you?" Yedit asked curiously.

Alex shook his head.

"Nah, I'm not freelance," he answered. "Going day by day mostly, though I seem to have lost my only legitimate gainful employment yesterday."

Well, he still had babysitting, Alex supposed, and though he was _very_ well paid, he doubted he could get Claire to pay him a good enough hourly rate to be able to afford things like rent and groceries and bullets. He did have plenty of money saved up, stored in liquid assets around the flat. Idly, he thought that he should store some of it elsewhere in the country, have a few places he could go to pick up some quick cash if he ever had to run. He put that on his 'to do' list for the afternoon before returning his attention to the killer eating cereal in his kitchen.

"So you came back here… to say thank you?" Alex asked. "How very… uncharacteristic."

He probably wasn't aware of the fact that his eyebrow arched in a perfect imitation of the gesture Yassen Gregorovitch had borrowed from Alex's own father as he spoke.

Yedit smiled.

"I need a favor," she said. "Well, technically, I'm calling in a debt, since you currently owe me."

"I think you'll find that I don't owe you shit, seeing as how you letting me go was your way of canceling out my pulling your ass out of hot water with Mossad," Alex said, just to be contrary.

"I then proceeded to lie to my father and your director, after giving you a key to one of my few most valuable safe houses," Yedit replied.

"In the process of saving your ass, I died," Alex replied. "Twice. And I used my one gadget to clear your name while I was getting tortured. Which, by the way, also happened twice."

"You took my laptop and my phone."  
>Alex just smiled back at her.<p>

"Fine, a favor then," Yedit answered, rolling her eyes. "Mossad is officially denying involvement in this operation, so I need to lay low for a while. Since my funds are unreachable and the department isn't going to let an expense like this appear on their logbooks, I'm stuck for a few days."

"You could have just asked," Alex said practically.

"I did, and then you… nevermind," Yedit said, scowling.

"The couch is yours," Alex told her with a grin. "Avoid the dishware, pretty much all of it was used to make explosives or some kind of horrible poison."

"Thank you," Yedit sighed, sagging in the chair.

"You haven't slept since I saw you last either, have you?" Alex asked critically. Yedit shook her head.

"Go sleep," he told her. "I have to go check on something. Plant _anything _in my flat, and I will hunt you down and kill you. I'm not kidding."

Yedit stuck her tongue out at him, but stood up and headed over towards the couch, scowling at him.

"Oh come on, how am I supposed to get my entertainment?" she demanded. "Daytime TV can't be half as interesting as the life and times of Alex Rider: Spy on the Run."

"It's Michael while I'm here," Alex replied, heading back into his room to grab a shirt and more weapons. Pulling the garment on reminded him that he'd been shot not a day ago, and he winced again at the ache in his side.

"Michael, huh?"

"New identity," Alex said, coming out of his room with a jacket over one arm.

"Aw, why'd you have to go and put a shirt on?" Yedit pouted. Alex stared at her.

"You are either seriously sleep deprived, or on some kind of drug," he said finally.

"Actually, it's both," Yedit grinned, using her hand to motion shooting a bullseye at the teenager while she leaned against the arm of the couch. "Valium is really awesome, y'know that?"

How Yedit had tracked Alex down in this state was now actually a really interesting question he figured he'd examine later. He swiped his laptop off the kitchen table and shoved it into his bag, along with one of his exam prep books.

"You're going to be so mad at yourself if you remember this when you wake up," Alex told her with a grin. "In the meantime, do try not to blow up my flat, yeah? You don't want to know what I had to do to get it in the first place."

Yedit saluted him, and passed out backwards onto the couch, her legs still bent over the side arm.

"You're gonna-"

Alex paused, realizing that Yedit was completely out.

"Goddamit Shalom," he mumbled, picking her up from where she was sprawled half on the couch, half off, and settling her smaller frame down onto the cushions. Honestly, he was rather touched that the Israeli spy had chosen to come to _him _when she was like this – drugged up and vulnerable. She trusted him more than he could have guessed.

It was a heady, kind of terrifying feeling.

Spies don't trust people. They don't know people whose couches they can crash on for the night, and they don't have friends they're not trying to manipulate, kill, or steal from. They didn't have people that they could go to for help without having to offer something in exchange, or come up with a suitably violent threat in order to make sure they were safe.

Spies don't know many people who they'd be willing to be unconscious in front of.

So what did that make Alex and Yedit?

People that crash on each other's couches, apparently.

Alex took his bag and headed out, locking the door behind him and going for his bike. Before he got on, he grabbed his phone and dialed the Bernard home phone.

"Hey Alex, what's up?" Claire asked.

"I just wanted to check on you and the twins, make sure everything was alright," Alex said as he bent down to unlock his bike. "I would have called before, but you know… work."

Claire chuckled.

"The girls are fine," she told him. "Still recovering, but they're already more bored than sick, and ready to get back on their feet. The doc says they should have a week or so more of bedrest, especially Michelle, since there were some complications in her surgery, but they'll be okay soon."

"I'm really glad," Alex told her honestly, stuffing the lock into his bag. "I was worried about them."

"You're sweet," Claire told him. "You alright? You said you just finished a job…"

"Little beat up," Alex said. "I've had a lot worse."

Claire snorted over the line.  
>"Haven't we always?" she asked.<p>

"True," Alex conceded. "Anyway, I just wanted to check up on you guys, but I'm headed out. Give me a call if you need me to swing by anytime soon, you know the drill."

"Sure. Bye Alex."

Alex hung up, and looked around. He had the persistent feeling that somebody was watching him, but the street was entirely empty. It was still too early for most people to be moving about, and a chilly fog hung in the air.

He took a second, more careful look. Nobody was there. He was very nearly certain of that. Shrugging, he headed out towards the local library. He'd been neglecting his chemistry studies, and wanted to check out a textbook or two on the subject, since his in-home tutor had left him without a human resource on the subject.

Alex wondered what he was really trying to prove, keeping up with his studies. It wasn't likely that he was ever going to find any kind of permanent legitimate employment, not when he'd be hunted by MI6 wherever he went.

He sighed. Maybe he just liked having something to work towards that was for nobody but himself, that was essentially constructive and had next to nothing to do with killing anyone?

Either way, it was too early to psychoanalyze himself, and his side was hurting again. He'd need to change the bandages on his gunshot wound soon. He'd do it when he got back from the library.

…  
>"So, any sign of this Michael Cooper?"<p>

"Well, he was employed on the books of this pub, some small local place," Snake said, looking up from his laptop. "Word is the woman who ran the place was killed in an explosion in some residential neighborhood. Turns out she was running some kind of child slavery ring."

"Do you think Cub was working for her?" Eagle asked.

"No," Ben said tightly. "I went down to the scene this morning and asked around. The only survivors were some of the kids. A teenager matching Alex's description was seen by all the kids there, but he helped them escape after locking the buyers in a vault downstairs which he proceeded to explode with some homemade TNT."

He left unsaid his personal opinion, which was that the Alex he knew would have willingly cut out his own heart than work for someone like Piper, not when she was hurting kids.

"Seriously?" Wolf asked, a half grin spreading over his face. "Our Cub, really?"  
>"He's not ours," Eagle said disapprovingly. "And he may be a teenager, but he's defected, and whatever his motives for getting involved here, Alex Rider is a dangerous liability. I don't like it any more than you guys do, but I'm not going to deny it just because it's convenient."<p>

There was a tense moment between the four soldiers. Their tempers were running thin, mostly because they had all slept in the same van, sharing space among the tech equipment in the back. They had traced Cooper's location to a flat in Manchester, and were waiting outside for him. Well, technically they were waiting around the corner, having set up a few cameras on the street (courtesy of Ben's know-how), and were watching Cooper's street on the screens inside their surveillance vehicle.

"Hey guys, look!"

A sleek black car pulled up in front of the flat, and a small redhead stepped out. The car zoomed off as the redhead staggered up the steps to the flat door they were watching, seeming to have a bit of trouble. A few moments later, the door opened, admitting the woman and a dark brunette poked his head out cautiously before closing the door.

"Is it him?" Ben asked.

"Can't tell, we're too far down the street," Wolf said. "Could be. Hair's the wrong color, but that doesn't mean anything."

"So, what, we wait?"

"And follow him," Wolf said. "At least we know he's there, not like Singapore when we spent a week and a half watching an unoccupied flat."

A few minutes later, the brunette stepped out the door, locking it behind him.

"Well, so much for my theory," Snake spoke up.

"What was that?" Wolf asked.

"Early morning booty call," Snake replied, not removing his eyes from the screen. "But they definitely know each other. Well enough that he's leaving her alone in his apartment. If it's Cub, she might be an accomplice."

"Well, right now what this means is that we can't search his flat," Ben said. "So we split up, half stay on the flat, half follow Cooper?"

"Good plan," Wolf said. "I call not staying in the damn van."

"Seconded," Snake said, closing his laptop and shoving it aside. "Fox is probably better at breaking into places unnoticed anyway."

Eagle and Ben mock glared at the two men who jumped out the back of the van and headed for their second vehicle, the rental MI6 had provided for them along with the van.

"I hate this job," Eagle groaned, stretching out into the extra space vacated by his two teammates. "Goddamn SIS."

Ben chuckled.

"Yeah, they have that effect on people," he muttered. He cast around for another, better topic.

"So, bets on who the girl is?" he asked.

"Drunken bugger," Eagle replied, leaning back into a position where he could comfortably keep an eye on the monitor

"You think?" Ben asked.

"I started out doing clean up in national parks," Eagle said flatly. "I can recognize a drunk from ten yards in the dark with nothing but my ears and a flashlight, and she was off her tits."

"Huh," Ben said. Alex hadn't ever shown any major proclivities towards that sort of indiscretion while they were on the job. To be honest, he'd kind of figured Alex to be batting for the other team.

"How many drunken buggers you know that show up the morning after?" Ben finally settled on asking.

Eagle turned his head to the side, contemplating that.

"It's seven thirty, so she's been up all night drinking," he said finally, making eye contact with Ben. "It's too early for her to have started after she woke up. Which means she thinks this Michael is safe, safe enough to go to when she's vulnerable, anyway. Think she lives with him?"

"No," Ben said. "She didn't have keys, and Cooper seemed suspicious of her coming back now."

"So, drunken friend then," Eagle said. "How many of those do you reckon Cub has around?"

"Not many," Ben sighed. "It's not his guardian, right? She was a redhead."

"Jack Starbright is still in Washington," Eagle supplied. "In a happy relationship with a detective, from all appearances."

Ben fell silent, and the two of them kept a careful watch over the moniters.

….

Mrs. Jones was just arriving home from her prolonged vacation when she got a very interesting phone call.

"Tulip?"

"Virgina!" Mrs. Jones said in surprise, a smile spreading across her normally stoic face. Here, in the safety of her home, there was no need to hold herself back, to pretend what she was and what she was not. "To what do I owe the pleasure? I'm just returning from holiday at the moment."

"Yes, and I'm just as shocked as your entire department, I'm sure," Virginia teased. "You haven't taken leave in ages!"

"Yes, well, the time was right," Mrs. Jones sighed.

"Indeed. Did I tell you I've been promoted?"

"No, you didn't," Mrs. Jones said. Her voice didn't reflect it, but she was surprised.

"Yes, they made me head of internal affairs," Virginia said, and Mrs. Jones could tell she was smiling. "I've officially taken over as of last month, and there's actually a file my predecessor left on my desk that I'd like to talk to you about."

"I see."

"It would seem Nathan had logged a certain phone call you'd sent in, and was in the process of beginning an investigation into the matter," Virginia said, her voice turning official and calm. "Indeed, with the change in administration, I'm only just caught up with all the paperwork that fell by the wayside, with the change in administrations, and this went quite under my radar. Luckily, my assistant found it."

"Lucky indeed," Mrs. Jones said. "Unfortunately, I cannot make any official trips to your office, as the nature of my observation might suggest."

"Damn it Tulip, you need to be seen to be standing on the right side of this," Virginia said, sounding frustrated. "This kind of scandal… Our entire SIS department may be held culpable for what has happened. Do you understand me? You will be ruined if you maintain your anonymity."

"It is far more important to me that the matter be resolved to the best of our ability," Mrs. Jones said stiffly. "If it is understood that I do not stand with the administration on this issue, even more extreme measures will be advocated without my ability to alleviate them."

"Tulip-"

"I will make no official statements or documents on the matter," Mrs. Jones said sharply. "If you require any more information, you already know where to look. Good day."

She hung up on her friend, staring into the fireplace.

This would ruin her, but at least it would allow her to finally get rid of the guilt that had been following around her for a very long time.

…

By the time Alex got back to his flat, Yedit was still passed out. Alex smiled in her direction. It was late in the afternoon, so he decided to actually cook some food, not having eaten all morning.

Yedit was roused by the smell of curry simmering in the skillet Alex and Anish had picked up and very carefully labeled as a "food only" cooking instrument.

"Is that food?" Yedit groaned from the bed.

"Yep," Alex replied. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," Yedit groaned. She sounded rough, as though the last few days had finally caught up with her.

"You hurt anywhere?" Alex asked. Yedit shook her head as she ambled into the kitchen to help Alex shop vegetables.

"Nope."

"Are you lying?" Alex asked.

Yedit gave Alex a glare that told the teenager to back off. Alex figured that Yedit was a big girl and could handle herself, and berated himself for not having asked while she was still loopy from the painkillers.

"Whatever," Alex said. "First aid kit is under the sink in the bathroom, either way."

There was a companionable silence filled with the sound of their knives hitting the cutting board as they chopped the vegetables.

"So, you and painkillers, not a great mix, huh?" Alex asked, searching around for a topic of conversation, and Yedit snorted.  
>"You've got five inches and what, eighty pounds on me?" she asked. "I can still kick your ass, but it just so happens that I'm small. Me and alcohol and drugs generally aren't a good match."<p>

"Lightweight," Alex grinned.

"Whatever," Yedit rolled her eyes. "At least I make good life choices."

Thinking of how the Brazilian mercenary's had used alcohol to get the drop on him, Alex decided to drop the issue in favor of putting more of his brainpower to sue trying to ignore how bizarre this whole situation was.

Though, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that making lunch in his kitchen with an assassin while chatting casually about football wasn't really the weirdest thing to happen in his life, and let it go.

…

They ended up staying in the flat for four days, watching old movies, cleaning guns and sharpening knives to pass the time. Alex was pretty sure Yedit had a few busted ribs, but she hadn't asked for his help as a matter of pride, and he wasn't going to offer it because he knew it wouldn't be appreciated. They were both thankful for the downtime.

Alex had spread out some of his funds – partly electronically, across a few accounts, and partly in liquid assets, to be mailed to specific PO boxes that he'd memorized the addresses and codes for.

Yedit was impressed with Alex's education in Arabic language skills, and spent some time trying to help him master Hebrew – which, Alex was convinced, was nothing more than Arabic viewed through a funhouse mirror. Some of the words and grammatical rules were exactly the same, some were very similar, and then some didn't seem to have any connection Alex could draw.

"This is ridiculous," he muttered under his breath whenever Yedit tried to push him to learning more, but he always ran through the drills with her anyway because there was no chance in hell Alex was going to let himself get dragged into a mission without knowing the language again.

Yedit had gone out looking for some sweets – and seriously, Alex had never had such an intense argument over flavors of _chocolate_, for gods sake ("In Israel, we have this chocolate that they put pop rocks in, and it's absolutely amazing!")

Alex snorted and replaced the bullet cartridge in the Desert Eagle Anish had given him. Apparently sweets were compulsory for making ones way through Star Wars (the originals, of course). Not that Alex was arguing, but sometimes he couldn't believe that Yedit Shalom was a bloodied assassin.

The sound of his phone ringing cut through his thoughts rudely. Alex checked the ID and picked up with a grin.

"Hey Claire, what's up?" he said.

"Sorry to bother you Alex, but do you think you could come watch the twins this afternoon?" Claire asked. "I can't stay the whole game and they need a ride back and a cheering parent in the stands. I'll leave the van so you can take them back and forth."

Alex chuckled.

"Always up to watch football," he said. "And I'd be happy to go keep an eye on the girls."

"You're a blessing Alex."

"Not like you don't pay me well enough," Alex smirked. Both of them knew that Alex was hardly working for the Bernards' because he was paid very well. Yes, he was compensated for far more than any normal babysitter probably earned, but there was no mistaking the fact that he worked for Claire mostly because he loved the twin's like his own sisters.

In just a few months, he'd begun to understand how Jack had been driven to adopt him as her own without reserve. He felt a wave of love and gratitude swell in his heart, and he hoped that wherever Jack was, she was safe. He hadn't so much as called her or tried to contact her in the last few months, because he knew the truth – wherever Jack was, she was far better off without him. He loved her dearly, and he couldn't bear to pull her back into danger because of him.

Alex, well, time had proven that Alex could take anything life threw at him and lob it straight back. He had the luck to beat the devil and the skills to out it to good use.

As far as he was concerned, protecting those girls was pretty damn close to the best use he could think of.

He called Yedit to let her know he had something to do for the afternoon, and wouldn't be back until late, and then headed off towards the Bernards.

…

The former group of SAS soldiers had been taking turns watching Alex and the flat, following him out when he stopped at a post office and keeping an eye on him as he returned.

"He's going to ground," Ben said thoughtfully.

"Do you think he knows we're here?" Eagle asked.

"No," Ben smiled slightly. "Trust me, we'd know if he knew. Alex doesn't do subtle very well."

"Or he's still planning something horrible."

"Or he just saved the lives of what, twenty kids, but blowing up a building and would like to stay away from anyone looking for someone with a face like his in case someone recognizes him," Ben cut in reasonably, cracking his knuckles. "Either way, we're still stuck here so there's no use whining."

It was several days later that they finally caught the first sign of movement from the flat.

"The redhead is leaving," Wolf said. "We got an ID on her?"

The woman pulled up a hijab and put on sunglasses before Snake could get a decent shot of her face.

"Damn," he hissed. "Well, anyway, this leaves Cooper on his own right? Let's go in and grab him!"

"No, wait," Ben said. "If this is Alex, and I think we're all pretty damn sure of that, we need to be cautious. No way we're challenging an armed, highly trained and dangerous rouge agent on his own turf. I'd like to go home eventually, thanks."

"Helpful Fox," Wolf griped. "Got a better plan?"

"Wait," Ben insisted with a tight glare.

Less than a minute later, the teenager emerged.

"Right, Fox, Snake, go search the flat," Wolf said. "See what you can find. Eagle and I will tail this kid, see where he goes."

"Don't let him see you," Ben warned Wolf. "Use the second car and tag team him, or he'll figure it out in no time."

"Right," Wolf said. "Eagle, get up front, stay on him."

The two cars followed Alex to a residential neighborhood where he met a woman outside a house, exchanged words with her, and received a set of keys.

"Is he fleeing?" Wolf asked Eagle through their connected phones.

"He doesn't look like someone who's running away," Eagle offered hesitantly. "Let's stay on him, we can alert the right authorities if he tries to flee the country."

They followed Alex… to a local park? Wolf was getting more confused as they watched the teenager pull over and let two girls – twins, roughly ten or eleven, from the looks of them – both wearing football uniforms out of the car. He grinned at them as they passed a soccer ball between them. Wolf stared in astonishment as Alex knelt to fix the bow on one girl's shoe, and adjust the shin guard on the other.

"Can we get sound?" Wolf asked.

"I think so," Eagle said, and a few moments later, the garbled sound of the last bit on their conversation came through the speaker.

"Lets get going then, don't want you late," Alex was saying, and though his voice was deeper, more mature, Wolf would have bet anything it was Cub.

They kept eyes on him as he took each girl to a football field, where they met up with their teams – from what Wolf could tell, there were two games going on and each girl was on a team in one of the games.

Alex moved between the two fields, watching each of the girls compete and cheering them on.

"Kids football?" Wolf asked uncertainly as the games drew to a close and they were watching Alex stand around with the parents of players. "This can't-"

"ALEX!"

Twin squeals came from two of the players, each wearing a different color uniform (the only way to distinguish them given their identical features), came running out of the crowd and threw themselves into the teenager's arms.

"There's my two heroes," Alex grinned down at them. "So, Maddie, I didn't catch the tail end of yours, did you kick their butts?"

"Yep!" Maddie nodded proudly, and the girls high-fived each other, each one a member of the winning team from their bracket.

"Well done, both of you," Alex beamed. "Your mum's not gonna be home for a few hours, want to go get chips or ice cream to celebrate?"

Two cheers sounded from the smaller girls, and Alex took one of their hands in each of his own and walked them towards the cars. He was stopped a few times by parents that recognized him, and they chatted for a few moments, obviously on good terms.

"This changes things," Eagle said quietly, pulling his headset down. "We can't grab him if those kids are in the way."

"Agreed," Wolf said, staring at the screen with something akin to determination. "We'll follow him, grab him tonight."

"Yeah," Eagle agreed. "That's the best plan we've got. Wait until we can get him away from any potential hostages, and then go in."

…

Alex ended up taking the girls for ice cream to celebrate their victories, and their last few moments of companionable friendship, before their teams faced each other in the finals two weeks from now. Alex was looking forward to watching that, though not the fights that would surely break out between them in the interim.

Of course, as soon as the timer ran down on that last game they'd be best friends again, regardless of the score or who won.

They were at home, taking turns competing against each other in Halo, when Alex got the call.

"Alex?" Yedit's voice sounded out of breath and just a little freaked out. "Alex, your flat was broken into. Your identity is compromised, wherever you are, you need to leave, just get out now and run, you have agents watching you!"

Hell.

Oh bloody hell.

Bloody buggering hell.

Alex closed his eyes, thinking fast.

"Wreck my flat," he finally said. "Make it look like you were keeping tabs on me, that you came to me because you recognized me and wanted to get under my guard to see who I'd been working with. Rip apart the couch, everything, do you understand?"

"Got it," Yedit said.

Alex snapped his phone shut with shaking fingers, holding it in a tight, white fist.

MI6 had found him. They'd probably been following him for days, which meant that the Bernards were in danger too… oh shit.

He pulled up speed dial. Claire answered on the second right.

"Alex, love, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Are you working?"

"No, just a dinner date, it's alright-"

"How fast can you get back here?"

"Alex, what's wrong?"

"I've been compromised," Alex said. Everything felt like it was happening far away, through some sort of glass. "I've had enough interaction with you that you might fall under scrutiny, so you may need to leave. But right now, I have a target on my back and while I swear to you I will do whatever it takes to protect your daughters until I can get them back to you, they aren't safe with me anymore."

Silence.

"Right," Claire said, all business. "Are you under attack at the moment?"

"No, I've just been warned that my flat has been broken into, and here may be the next place they'll hit."

"You're sure it wasn't a common burglary?"

"It's MI6, I'm all but certain."

"Dave, dear, get the check and call a cab, I'm leaving now," Claire said, and he heard the rustle of movement as she began to leave whatever restaurant she was at. "Can you get the girls out unseen?"

Alex glanced out the window, looking through the blinds.

That van.

He'd seen it before, outside the girl's game this morning.

It didn't belong to anyone on this block, or any of the parents at the game.

"They're here," he said, and his hands were shaking again. "I… Shit. No, I won't be able to get them out without them being marked as accomplices or hostages, which will just make things worse for everyone."

He knew of only one way to keep the girls out of this.

"Right," he said quietly. "I'm going to protect the girls at any cost, Claire. I may not see you again, but it has been an honest pleasure, and I am sorry for bringing this to your door."

He ended the call and removed the sim card from the phone, throwing it down the drain.

"Girls, go upstairs and hide under your beds," Alex said firmly, coming into the living room. "I have to leave, but everything is going to be okay, do you understand? It's going to be okay."

He stayed calm, knowing from experience that panicking would cause the children to pick up on the fact that something was wrong. He kept his posture natural and his voice at normal speaking levels, giving absolutely nothing away. There was no need to distress the girls, ever all.

He glanced out the window again as the girls turned off the game, knowing better than to question an order given in the interest of safety. The van was stationary. Waiting for backup?

Probably.

Alex was, after all, a dangerous criminal known for evading arrest.

He had a minute, maybe, at worst. Five or ten at best, if they were coming from his flat. He'd go with the worst case scenario, which would leave him time to work with.

Alex Rider could do a hell of a lot in a minute.

Claire Bernard kept smoke grenades in a box on one of the bookshelves, and Alex grabbed that as he shooed the girls upstairs.

"But will you be alright?" Maddie asked, pausing on the stairs.

"I'll be fine, but I need to go now," Alex said.

"Will you be back?"

Twin pairs of bright green eyes fixed on him, and Alex felt tears welling up behind his eyes.

"I don't know," he said quietly. Calmly. He needed to stay calm because there wasn't time to panic, no time to sit and make himself feel better, he needed to move. "But everything will be okay, do you understand me?"

Maddie rushed forward and hugged him, and Michelle followed suit.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Alex murmured when they hid their faces in his shirt, holding on to him tightly. "Everything is going to be okay, I promise. Look at me."  
>He tipped their heads up, meeting their teary eyes with confidence and sincerity.<p>

"I will be fine, and you will be fine, and your mum is going to be home soon, but I need you to get upstairs and hide, can you ladies do that for me?"

They giggled, presumably at being called ladies, and curtsied at him before running up the stairs.

Alex set his jaw and turned back to the door. He turned off all the lights downstairs, and jammed a handful of grenades into his pockets. They were a no-heat brand, and could be set off with a pull and a twist. Alex hoped they could cover him.

He walked over to the door, pausing behind him.

So this was it.

This was the end of Michael Cooper, the end of the man that could make his own way in the world, the end of the man ready to take his tests and pay his own rent and work a normal job…

This was how everything was to end.

Alex tried to breathe passed the block in his throat.

Tonight, he was going to die.

It didn't matter if MI6 executed him, or put him in prison for the rest of his life, or blackmailed him into working for them again, his life would be over the minute he was brought into their custody.

_I can't do this, _Alex thought desperately, looking up at the ceiling. _I can't work for them again. I can't do it._

And yet the idea of letting them ambush him here, where he was putting the girls at risk… that was more than abhorrent. It was unthinkable.

So he pulled open the door, locking it from the inside before he shut it behind him. He put his hands into his pockets and headed towards the side of the house, where his bike was leaning. He heard an engine revving, and his heart jolted.

Son of a bitch.

He paused, pretending to be adjusting his bag so that he could jump onto his bike. In reality, he was priming as many smoke grenades as he could, getting ready to make a run for it.

When the car was ten feet away, Alex turned and lobbed three of grenades. They hit their mark, breaking the windshield and exploding a moment later. He heard a muffled yell and a line of curses (one occupant then, which left an unknown number coming his way at any given future point, and took off as he heard a door slamming open and the general chaos as the agent found his weapon. He had maybe three seconds to get out of sight before they started firing and –

There was the alley, coming out halfway down the Bernard's street! Alex took a hard left, spraying gravel in every direction and skimming the ground with his leg, but the bike remained upright, and Alex put everything he had into pedaling as hard and as fast as he could.

The chase was on.

…

**So the name for this chapter is based on the song by Imagine Dragons. It's actually amazing, and I think that it's going to be the theme song for this entire fic.**

**On a side note, I'm thinking of making a fanmix for the entire three arcs. Would anyone be interested in something like that?**

**Love,**

**~InK **

**((PS: The chocolate Yedit is talking about does exist, and it's fabulous and delicious and your first time eating it is not one easily forgotten.))**


	8. Dead End

Operation: Scorched Earth – Dead End

**So here's a really exciting chapter to make up for the longish wait. I'd apologize, but ya'll have probably figured out by now that I'm not that great at keeping to update schedules… but hopefully you love me anyway? :D Especially since this chapter is straddling seventeen pages.**

**Anyway, with not that many miles to go before I sleep, I intend to make every chapter count, and we've got quite a wild ride left in store, let me tell you! I've still got a few of my best tricks up my sleeve, and this is not by any means your last major action-based chapter. ;D So sit back, buckle up, and get ready. We're coming up against the end. **

**Fondly yours,  
>~InK<strong>

…

Heart pounding, lungs gasping, muscles cramping, fingers cold and locked around the handles of his bike, skin covered in a thin sheen of sweat, Alex raced against time.

He needed to ditch the bike, get somewhere with cover. He had to assume that every single one of his resources had been compromised – if MI6 had been following him, they might already have the papers to search any post boxes that might be associated with him.

That left him in a very bad place.

Alex turned off the alley, dumping the bike in a bin by the entrance – and shit, he'd liked that one – and crept through the dark, moving slowly and deliberately, staying hidden. From nearby, he heard the crunching of tires – had the agent's backup finally arrived?

He heard the sound of footsteps somewhere in the dark, and reacted on instinct, rolling under the nearest parked car.

Not half a minute later, the vague outline of two shoes paused outside the car.

The rolling of tires came to a stop. A door opened and closed.

"Where the bloody hell is he?"

That was a voice from his long distant past, half remembered, and yet still unmistakable.

Wolf.

"He was just here!"

It took him a minute to place Eagle's voice, not having ever interacted with him much. Flashlight beams shone on the ground, illuminating circles of gravel barely two feet from where Alex lay under the car.

"Spread out in pairs, search the area," Wolf said. "He won't be far."

Several pairs of boots get moving, and Alex closed his eyes, trying to count them. There was Wolf and Eagle, and one, possibly two other people.

In all likelihood, a four man team then. Wolf and Eagle's presence meant that Ben and Snake would also be here; it seemed MI6 was hoping to contain the number of people who knew about the teenaged spy they had blackmailed into working for them.

And now these four highly trained soldiers were after him.

As the footsteps moved away, Alex rolled as silently as he could out from under the car. Staying in a low crouch, he hung back in the shadows. There was a wall about ten feet away – if he could get over it, he could put some more distance between himself and his pursuers.

It looked like Alex's long marathon to escape the clutches of MI6 was going to come down to ten feet of sprinting across open ground.

He didn't have much time. He shifted forwards, to give himself a better head start and –

A light came on above him, motion activated by his shift from one foot to the other, preparing himself to run.

The shouting started.

_Bloody goddamn motion detecting bloody lights!_

Alex ran.

He threw himself forward, crossing the distance in a few long strides. His footsteps echo loudly against the pavement, slamming rubber against concrete as Alex moved as fast as his body could go. Bullets (probably rubber bullets or tranquillizers, Alex thought) hit the wall inches from his body as he used his momentum to sweep himself over the wall.

He landed hard on his side, graceless and desperate. There was a tranquillizer dart embedded in the rubber of his shoe, just short enough not to have pricked him.

Alex is insanely lucky, lucky beyond all comprehension, because landing on his feet would have driven that right up into the arch of his foot, putting him out of this race for good.

His heart was beating a million miles an hour, pounding angrily against the inside of his chest as he picked himself up and forces himself to keep moving. There was a main street two blocks from here. People and busy streets would make the soldiers less willing to come straight at him, for now.

He heard the soldiers landing behind him and on instinct dove into a smooth roll as three darts flew right where his head had been a second before. His momentum drove him back to his feet, and kept running. Two blocks.

Alex ran faster than he had ever run before. He had maybe a second before his pursuers rounded the corner out of the alley, and he needed somewhere to vanish.

He dove into a thicket of Birds of Paradise just as they came into view, guns out in the open, and Alex pressed himself into the ground, willing himself to vanish.

As soon as they passed him, Alex crawled around to the back of the house. He leapt the fence and emerged on the next block, running in the opposite direction. There was another major street that way, three blocks down, but he'd have a head start if the soldiers were going the wrong way.

He walked. Calmly, slowly, like he belonged there, like he was just taking an evening stroll.

He smiled at the woman passing him with the baby carriage, and kept going. Calm. Slow. Deliberate.

Two blocks now. One and a half.

He could see the lights of the shops there, neon electric day to the muted amber light cutting through the darkness on the residential streets. He was almost there.

One block left.

He glanced behind him. Was that group back there made of soldiers, waiting to drag him back to a life he never wanted?

Get a grip.

Who else might they have sent after him? After all, why would MI6 only send four agents after him, when they'd thrown small armies at him and lost?

He breathed a sigh of relief as he merged with the pedestrian traffic. His instincts were in overdrive, analyzing every exit, every threat, every perspective spy waiting to take him down –

Keep moving.

He walked twelve blocks to the mall, where he stole a car from the parking garage with absolutely no fanfare.

He needed to get out of Manchester. MI6 would be watching the airports, the rails, the docks, any exit out of the country, but if he could stay off their radar for 48 hours, their resources would dwindle quickly.

It was the same tactic he'd used in America, and it had worked then.

He drove east, because his best bet would be getting across the channel. If nothing else, he could probably swim it. People did that often enough, and while Alex himself had never tried it, he was confident enough in his fitness to complete such a task.

All that was important right now was to stay moving. MI6 would be one step behind him, right at his shoulder, and he could not afford even a single slip up.

He forced himself to calm down, to think logically and calmly, because he was on the verge of freaking out. His mind was a jumbled mess of unacknowledged emotion, stemming from the single desperate terrified resolute thought that _he could not go back._

Not now, not ever.

He drove until he hit the coast, heading towards the channel tunnel.

It only occurred to him then, when the final traces of adrenaline had cleared from his system, that he had absolutely nothing. No money, no resources. Hell, even his laptop had been in his flat.

Oh shit. His laptop.

Alex spared a second of frantic thinking, wondering if there was anything incriminating on the computer, but it was mostly just a leisure tool at this point. Alex didn't keep any records of his work for the Bernards – he was paid in cash, and there were no other contacts that could be found using his computer, so it wasn't a terrible leak. It was however a useful tool that he no longer had to work with, and that just sucked.

The good news was that Alex found two hundred quid in one of his boots, and still had his wallet, which included all his identification, like the fake passport he had used to get into England with the four mercenaries the renegades had sent to escort him.

If he needed to cross any borders legally, he would have to do it soon, before MI6 put out warrants on Michael Cooper.

The enormity of the task before him was almost unbearable to think about.

How could one kid manage to stay three steps ahead from a major intelligence organization bent on finding him when he had next to no resources, and no real allies?

If anything, he was worse off now than he'd been when he first escaped from the CIA headquarters in Virginia driving a classic Aston Martin.

At least then, he'd had the promise of a small, personalized key that Yedit had given him, the possibility of hope and safety waiting at the end of this long dark tunnel.

Now, Alex was completely isolated and alone.

His phone rang.

Alex stared at it.

He'd taken out the SIM card, because he didn't want any of his contacts to be traced if MI6 got a hold of it, but they might still try to track his phone.

But how would they have gotten his number?

It rang again.

Alex swore and picked it up.

"Hello little Alex."

Alex nearly wrapped the car around a tree.

"Yassen!" he choked out in a tone that was half relieved, half terrified, and he wondered if this was really better than having MI6 call him. "Why do you have my telephone number?"

"Don't ask stupid questions," Yassen ordered sharply. "You are being hunted by a covert team of MI6 agents."

"Thanks for the news bulletin, I really would have had no idea otherwise," Alex snarked back. "I mean, the men with bloody guns absolutely did not clue me in at all."

"For someone who wishes so dearly to be considered a man, you act remarkably like a child."

"Oh sod off, what do you want?" Alex demanded, taking a sharp right. "I'm a bit busy at the moment."

"We have operatives on the mainland," Yassen said calmly. "I will give you an address and you will drive there, and you will be looked after."

"What's the catch?"

Because there had to be a catch. Handing these renegades Scorpia on a bloody platter hadn't been enough to win himself his freedom, so why on earth would they give him a freebie now?

"You will be ours," Yassen said, and there was a note of quiet triumph there that the man had probably worked very hard to smooth out… and failed.

Now that was interesting.

Yassen's voice continued, inexorable and smooth.

"You will work for us. No backing out, no discussion."

"So that's the deal then?" Alex asked, bitter realization beginning to scratch at the corners of his mind. "I'm either a slave to MI6 or a slave to you?"

"Every man is a slave, little Alex, and it is time to choose which master you will serve."

Alex's shoulders tensed, and his grip on the wheel was fierce and white knuckled.  
>"I can't kill for you," Alex whispered.<p>

"You have done it before," Yassen said calmly. "Come now Alex, you have seen that working for us would not be so terrible. You will be given the skills and tools you need to do your work for us, and we will not let you down. And we will not lie to you, not about anything important, not like MI6 has."

"Why me?" Alex asked into the night.

"You are talented," Yassen replied. "You have skills and instincts many grown and seasoned assassins do not. You understand the system you must fight against better than any other, and I would much rather keep you where I can see you."

It was honest, upfront, and brutal.

Alex grit his teeth.

"I will not keep this offer open forever," Yassen said softly. "I have given you more than enough chances to make your own decision. Make it now. On which side do you stand, Alex Rider?"

Understanding finally hit Alex like a wall of bricks.

He remembered when, months ago, Yassen had saved his life in Tunisia. He remembered the way Yassen had offered to protect him after he'd fled, desperate and terrified from two clashing armies in an abandoned warehouse, and he remembered the way that the renegades had used every means at their disposal to tie Alex closer and closer to them. Made him kill for them, given him friends, all but straight up courted him.

It was all a game.

A game orchestrated specifically to get Alex Rider to pick the 'right' side.

It was a game meant to ensure that Alex would be pushed into a corner with no escape, before the renegades could swoop in, offering him a way out.

"Tell me something then," Alex said. "When your new board discussed the information I had given you on Scorpia, which one of you lot made the decision to throw me at that psycho in Uganda?"

There was a long, damning silence.

"Thought so," Alex pursed his lips. "Well, I must say Yassen, that was spectacularly played. Really. I mean, well done. First you hit me where it hurt by sending me after a child killer, and you made sure to do it when I was vulnerable and willing to do anything for my freedom. Did Joseph Kony even actually owe you anything, or was that another lie?"

More silence.

"And Anish, the rest of them, how many files did you go through to pick the perfect team to draw me in?" Alex demanded. "Did you order them to befriend the poor susceptible teenager who had no bloody clue-"

"Enough."

Yassen's voice could have cut steel.

"What does it matter?" Yassen asked. "You have what you want. We both know you will not be able to run from your former employers by yourself, and we both know which of us is the better option."

Alex shook his head. His eyes sparkled with tears born of anger and fear and hurt that he wasn't going to allow to fall.

Not ever.

"Hey Yassen, who was it that said 'I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul'?"

"I believe it was William Henley."

"Well, I'm captaining my own bloody soul," Alex said. "I won't kill anyone I don't have to, not for you, or MI6 or anyone. As far as I'm concerned, the slate between us is clean. Sod off. Come looking for me, and I'll plant a bullet inside of you."

"Alex-"

Alex hung up.

He hung up on Yassen Gregorovitch.

Alex took a moment to park alongside the channel and threw the phone into the depths of the sea, trying to process what he'd just done. A cool evening wind was blowing, sending his hair whipping around his face. He watched the phone disappear into the depths of the English Channel.

There. He was completely cut off, with enough of a lead on MI6's team that he could vanish into the crowd now. He'd change his appearance again, forge some new documents…

He'd have to keep moving for the rest of his life, and leave the name Alex Rider far behind him.

He didn't need Yassen fucking Gregorovitch to come after him too.

Shivering in the chill of the night air, Alex stared out across the water.

Oh he was so, so buggered.

Alex drove and drove. He passed French customs with no fanfare, unaware that the second he was out of sight, the officer had picked up the phone in her booth and dialed the special hotline number she'd been given not an hour before, in case she encountered a teenager fitting the description of the boy she'd just spoken to.

…

Alex stopped at a café about 30 miles north of the channel tunnel exit. He slumped in a seat in a back corner, inhaling the muffin that was his breakfast, and downing three cups of coffee before he kept going.

Where? He had no idea. But he just needed to move, that much he knew.

Fifty miles later, his car ran out of gas.

Alex walked the rest of the day, and slept on a park bench. He remembered a lifetime ago, walking along the Suez Canal with Yedit, the bright Egyptian sun blazing down at them. This was so much easier in so many ways. He hoped Yedit had gotten away clean, when his thoughts came to her.

For the first time in days, he thought of Jack, and hoped she was happy.

She deserved that, to have a happy, fantastic life. She'd taken such good care of him forever, and she deserved so much better that the hand life had dealt her.

Alex stole another car the next morning, and headed north. He wondered vaguely how many grand theft auto charges he'd accumulated since going on the run.

He just kept going, heading northwards.

MI6 would expect him to head straight east, sticking to countries where he spoke the language. Well, he wouldn't.

A few days later, Alex had stopped to pick up some more food when he saw the notice on the television about an escaped criminal fitting his description.

He kept his head down and kept moving.

…

He turned east when he hit the sea.

He still had no bloody clue where he was going.

…

Alex's stitches had broken open, and his gunshot wound was bleeding again. He eyed the dirty bandage with apprehension and did the best he could to clean out the wound in a public loo. He sprang for some gauze the next city he stopped in, his mouth a thin line of desperation as he contemplated his ever-shrinking supply of money.

…

Somewhere in the Netherlands, he stole another car.

…

Alex was halfway through Germany, still running on nothing but desperation. His money had completely run out, and he still had no destination in mind.

It had been three days since he'd crossed the border, three very long days full of almost no sleep and too much worry. Now that he was no longer standing directly in the line of fire, however, he found that his lack of sleep was catching up with him.

Alex pulled over in a crowded garage and slept.

…

He woke with a start, jerking upwards in the car. A glance at the clock on the dash let him know he'd managed a little over five hours.

Groaning, Alex wiped his face. The bullet wound in his side throbbed painfully. It had finally stopped bleeding sluggishly, but Alex knew he wasn't out of the woods yet. If it got infected, he would die. There was no hospital he could go to, no allies who could take him in.

He'd burned that very last bridge when he hung up on Yassen, and even now, exhausted, in pain, and running on fumes, with the assassin's offer looking more and more tempting, Alex wouldn't even know where to start looking for the man.

And besides, he was done being played. He could see the long game the renegades had been playing with him, more subtle than anything Scorpia or MI6 had ever tried. But Alex wasn't going to be a killer, not for any of them.

Not if he had any say in it.

So long as he held on to that, so long as he could keep a steady grip on who he was, Alex was going to survive.

…

He pulled some odd jobs, earning straight up cash and leaving town within a few days of arriving. Alex spent most of his time looking over his shoulder.

As it turned out, Alex had a talent for hustling darts, too. He had good aim and could land any dart exactly where he wanted it on the board. It was barely enough to keep going, but it was the best source of income Alex could muster without drawing too much attention to himself.

He used some of this time to stop and get new false documents produced. They were nowhere near as thorough as the ones that the Renegades had gotten Alex, and would only barely stand up to scrutiny, but they would be serviceable for as long as MI6 wasn't examining them with a fine tooth comb. Maybe once he knew that he was in the clear, Alex could save up enough to get better documents, but for now, he would work with what he had.

Alex had pulled up at a bar near the German/Polish border. He was debating with himself about the best way to cross Poland. On foot, he'd be much harder to find, but it would literally be over in seconds if he were found. Over the broken ground, there was no way he could outrun the kind of resources MI6 had.

On the other hand, by car, he would be restricted to a few easily controlled roads, and if he were spotted, it wouldn't be difficult to cut him off.

He would be fast then. He'd change cars and appearances in every city, which required enough cash to do the job properly, which left him with the need to score some serious cash.

Alex spread out a map he'd stolen in front of him, picking out his route. Maybe he'd drive south, hugging the border without crossing it. He could dip south now until he hit the coast of Greece, and take a boat into Port Said. He'd forge papers for some international organization, and disappear into the Middle East.

He folded the map closed and shoved it into the bag he'd picked up that morning to carry vital supplies. It had a compass, a day's worth of water, energy bars, and matches – enough to make temporary camp if he had to get out of the cities.

He surveyed the bar with a critical eye, and turned white.

Wolf was sitting at the bar. With Ben Daniels.

Alex swallowed. Had they seen him? Was this it?

He'd have to assume that this was an ambush. Bloody everlasting hell…

Alex stood calmly, drawing absolutely no unnecessary attention to himself. He headed for the bathrooms. If the former members of K-Unit were watching the exits, he doubted that they would be watching this one.

There was a window set high into the wall, but it became quickly apparent that Alex wasn't going to fit through it. Two years ago, at the scrawny age of fourteen, he could have definitely used the window as a viable escape route, but Alex was bigger and far more muscular than he had been back then.

Fortunately, Alex wasn't out of options. There was an air conditioning vent in the wall. Bracing himself against the opposite wall, Alex gave the vent a few forceful kicks, driving it free. Not wasting any time, he vanished through the hole in the wall, looking around to see if anyone had heard anything. He pushed the broken vent back into place and took off running.

…

Five days later, a disheveled and exhausted Alex checked into a hotel in Wroclaw, Poland. He'd avoided all cities and roads as best he could, instead utilizing the best skills he had to vanish into the wilderness.

Ian had taught him this too, had shown him how to move through heavily wooded terrain without leaving a trace. They'd gone backcountry hiking together a number of times, and Alex knew how to survive on his own in the wild.

He spent most of that first day following a long river, jumping from rock to rock and wading in the shallows to disguise his scent. He hung his clothes over a branch to dry at night, not daring to light a fire when it could bring his pursuers right to his position.

At night, he shivered against the cold and tried to curl up to stay as warm as possible. He was glad that the worst of winter was already gone, and that it was all but spring, but the nights were still cold enough to be miserable.

Alex spent most of his second day running flat out across every open space he could find, trying to make up time. He followed his compass, heading south as quickly as he dared. His body was complaining against the overuse, never having been driven quite this way for so long without rest.

He woke the third day with hunger pains that were beginning to rival what he'd experienced among the child soldiers of the Lord's Resistance Army, and ate the very last of his food. He walked all day, stopping only to chance building a fire to boil a new container full of water to be sure it was safe to drink, and went on through the night, running along abandoned dirt roads when there was nobody else to see him.

He slept in a shack that had probably last been occupied long before Alex had been born, which kept him out of sight and gave him a shaded place to rest. He took off at nightfall, looking for any major road he could find.

Long miles later, Alex finally found civilization. The first thing he did was find a public toilet where he could clean himself off and toss his clothes, changing into his least ratty spare shirt. He picked up a new change of clothes in the main city, and found a decent hotel. He checked in using one of the fake identifications he'd manufactured somewhere in Europe, and collapsed into a tub of comfortingly warm water, thanking god that he'd made it without getting caught.

That had been close.

Far too close.

How had MI6 even found him back in Germany? He'd been so careful about staying under the radar, had moved unpredictably and erratically through Europe, and walked a good portion of that journey on foot. How on earth had they found him?

Did they have some kind of tracking device on him? Perhaps, but how was that possible? He didn't have anything on him at this point that had been with him in Manchester, so it had to be something else.

What concerned Alex was that MI6 appeared to have only one team seeking him, which meant that they could give that team the best possible resources, probably indefinitely Alex didn't know how long Mr. Blunt and Mrs. Jones would be allowed to hijack a team of specially trained soldiers and keep them on his trail. For all he knew, this team could be following him forever.

He needed to deal with this, as soon as he was no longer on the verge of collapse.

Once Alex had cleaned off the mud that he was pretty sure had seeped into his bones, he took a moment to study his appearance in the mirror. His blonde roots were showing under the dark dye that he'd used to change his appearance. With a sigh, he used the razor in the hotel room to shave it close and short. At this point, the fact that his hair was half one color and half another would attract more attention than his own blonde hair, and he didn't have the money to spare for anything non-essential, and hair dye, while important, was nowhere near the top of Alex's priority list right this moment.

His hair cropped short to his satisfaction, Alex went in search of food. He found soup and warm, fresh bread, which was better than a feast, given his five days wandering among the wilderness.

Not long after, Alex drifted off to sleep in his hotel room, enjoying the luxurious comfort of a roof over his head, and a warm, feather soft bed.

…

The next morning, Alex stole a car.

Honestly at this point, Alex was starting to think that if the soldiers he'd once trained and fought with were still on his trail, they probably deserved to catch him. He didn't know how they'd tracked him to Germany, but he had to assume that they'd be able to use the same method to keep following him for now.

He stayed in Budapest long enough to replenish his dwindling supply of money sometime around midday, but he was gone by nightfall, and back on the road. He was feeling particularly well rested after ten hours of uninterrupted sleep in a nice hotel, and was having no problem staying awake on the road.

Which was a good thing, because the roads he was taking weren't well built or oft maintained, which made for rocky going along many twists and turns in the trees.

He stopped in Belgrade for the night a few hours later, grabbing a few hours of sleep in the stolen car before taking off on foot.

This time, Alex was much better prepared to take on the backcountry travel. He'd spent all his money on dehydrated meals and a good water bottle with a built in filter system and water test. He had a much sturdier pair of boots, and a poncho that could double as protection from the weather, and a warm blanket at night. He had a straw hat with a wide brim that would keep the worst of the sun away, and make for a good disguise if nothing else.

He also bought a gun.

It was a small one, a double action .22 Smith and Wesson. Alex checked out the firing mechanism to make sure it was operational, and now kept it tucked into the outside pocket of his bag. It was easy to conceal and lighter than any weapon Alex had ever used, which meant it was probably going to kick worse than any of the other handguns he'd gotten a hold of.

Alex missed the Desert Eagle he'd kept with him in Manchester, even as he quietly hated the thought of carrying a lethal weapon on his person.

He really hoped he wouldn't need to use it to fire on his former teammates. They were bastards, and they were tracking him for MI6, but that didn't mean they deserved to die for it, and Alex had no business shooting at people who had already taken plenty of bullets for him. They had all saved his life multiple times, just as he'd saved theirs. He didn't want to fire at them with a live gun.

Unfortunately, Alex was in a corner here. He didn't have any friends left to help him, and he was left surviving on his own creativity and ingenuity.

It wasn't going to last.

Alex knew he was only buying himself time. He was racing at breakneck speed down a set of tracks even though he could see the dead end coming up just in front of him.

Without protection, without help…

Alex closed his eyes and tried to pretend that he hadn't and wasn't considering using that pistol on himself when he came up against the inevitable end.

Every muscle in Alex's body complained with every step forward, but if there was anything Alex knew how to do at this point, it was ignore the pain and keep moving.

At the very least, the bullet wound in his side seemed to be mostly healed. That was one less thing to have to worry constantly about.

Which was good, because right now, that list was pretty damn long.

Alex was angling south and east, following his compass and keeping the sun at his back as he walked towards Bulgaria. He figured he could keep up with his original plan to get on a boat heading for Egypt, but he would need to stay even lower below the radar than he usually did.

Alex found out three days later that he had misjudged exactly how far east he needed to be by a few hundred miles, and ended up arriving at the border of Kosovo. Heavily armed guards manned the border patrol offices, and the lines in customs were heavily crowded. Alex decided to just go with it, because it was a shorter route, and he had no interest in doubling back, or spending any time walking along a border manned by guys with guns.

Alex joined one of the lines, letting the hat fall down low over his face and blending into the mass of people. At the very least, it would take his pursuers a while to get through these border checks as agents of the British government, and at best, none of them would suspect that Alex was being this cavalier about his personal safety.

As soon as he was across the border, Alex exhaled deeply in relief, and set about the business of getting across Kosovo as quickly as he could without attracting any attention.

He remembered hearing about Kosovo, both in class and in the news while growing up. It was a conflict-riddled region where violent riots were frequent. He knew next to nothing about the conflict itself, only that there was a long history of tension and violence associated with the area, and that the UK advised it's citizens to suspend any non-necessary travel to the major cities there, and stay out of everywhere else, more or less.

He managed to avoid any and all violent riots or conflicts in Kosovo, and it was with a sigh of relief that he crossed the border into… wait, where exactly was he?

It took Alex nearly half an hour to figure out what country he was entering, and once he'd finally established it was Macedonia, he spent a few hours in a local bar, hustling for cash, before he left the city on foot once again.

It was a good thing he'd replaced his shoes with something sturdier, because the near constant wear was already beginning to show on the pair he had now. The sneakers he'd been wearing when he fled Manchester would not have held up to this kind of abuse.

Alex finally crossed into Greece several days later, a smile crossing his features.

He was hungry, exhausted, and covered in so much mud that he didn't think he was ever going to get clean again. His skin was several shades darker from multiple days in the sun, and when he got the chance to critically examine his reflection in a pond, he was satisfied that he would be very difficult to recognize.

…

In Katerini, Alex got new clothes to blend in with the population at large. He picked out cargo pants and a button down shirt and tied a bandanna around his head. In the city, he looked just like a hundred other young tourists travelling the city – at least once he'd gotten the worst of the mud and dirt cleared up.

He changed all his currency into Euros, but half an hour with the single computer housed in the hostel where Alex was staying nights told Alex that he definitely didn't have enough to book a ticket to Egypt as per his plans.

So he spent a few nights in Katerini. He picked up an off the books job with a local fisherman. Alex knew absolutely nothing about fish, barely anything about boats, and no clue how to work the technology that allowed people to use the latter as a tool to catch the former. He bluffed his way through as best he could, hoping that his blatant inexperience wasn't as obvious to his employer as it was to him.

The cash sucked, but it was money, and Alex didn't need that much to get to his next destination. He could worry about making more money, or finding a more permanent source of income, once he got to Egypt.

Every additional night Alex stayed in Katerini, he grew more and more paranoid. He was jittery, with one eye always looking over his shoulder. He felt hyperaware of everyone and everything around him, and it was a relief when he finally got his week's wages – enough to get on a boat to Rhodes, and then Alexandria.

He'd hoped to be able to end up in a city he was at least vaguely familiar with, but Alex was willing to take what he could get, and he wanted to get out of Europe as quickly as possible.

…

Alex boarded the _Amacello _the next morning, breathing slightly more easily now that he was on the move again. He was more relaxed than he'd been all week as the boat pulled away from the Greek coast and into the waters of the Aegean Sea. They would follow the coast until they reached the Mediterranean Sea, stop and refuel in Rhodes, and about a week after leaving Katerini, arrive in Egypt.

The _Amacello _was actually a decently sized passenger ship, with about sixty people staying on board for the week.

Part of Alex was nervous, because he hated the idea of being closed in on a boat, but he was relieved to finally be leaving the continent, which helped soothe his instinctual nervousness.

What also helped was the fact that the coastline was still well in sight. Alex estimated from his position on deck that he could swim the distance easily, at least as long as the _Amacello _continued on it's path parallel to the Greek coast.

Leaning against the railing, Alex forced himself to exhale deeply. The sun was shining, a fair wind was blowing, and he was still free, weeks after having his cover blown in Manchester.

The first few days of the trip were uneventful. Alex shared a room with three other young men travelling together across Europe. They were Americans, excited to be visiting historical landmarks and enjoying a temporary vacation away from home. Alex let them be and they did him the same favor, which was nice. Alex spent a lot of time carefully watching the other people on the ship and staying out of sight as best as possible.

Things were fine until the _Amacello _finally pulled away from the coast as it got ready to enter the Mediterranean and head east towards Rhodes.

Alex was in his cabin when the intercom system of the ship (which the captain had used to introduce himself three days prior), came to life and sent him into a panic.

"This is your captain speaking," a voice blared through the intercom, speaking in what was presumably Greek, and then Arabic. "We are being stopped and searched by an international patrol. If everyone on board will remain calm and cooperative, we will try and get through this nuisance as quickly as possible. Thank you, and we're very sorry for the delay."

Bloody buggering MI6 –

Alex didn't have a second to spare cursing out the soldiers, because however they had found him, they were here, and Alex needed to get off this boat.

The Greek coast was too far away now for him to swim for it, and at any rate, he'd be seen and caught before he could get very far. He'd have to hide on board, wait out the soldiers.

There wasn't going to be much time. Alex didn't know if the soldiers had backup or spies on board, and he needed to get out of sight now. Moving down the hallway passed some confused looking passengers and he headed for the stairs to the lower deck.

He needed to hide, needed to find someplace where the former members of K-Unit and whatever authorities they had pulled into this mess couldn't find him. He tried to remain as calm as possible, knowing that the more he freaked out, the more he would stand out, and the more danger he would be in.

It was the first rule of spying; nobody questions you if you look like you belong. Alex was slipping, exhaustion and long weeks of on foot travel and trying to stay out of sight finally catching up with him.

He found a metal staircase going down and took the stairs two at a time. He didn't know how long he had before Ben and Wolf and the rest of his former (temporary) unit caught up with him. He had to be fast, and find somewhere that they would never look.

Alex stared around the engine rooms in the bowels of the ship, desperately trying to find somewhere to hide. The rumble of the engine was loud and insistent here, drowning out Alex's ability to think. His head throbbed in time with the growl of the engine and he rubbed at his eyes, trying to focus.

It was hot too, which made this place a useless long term hiding spot. Alex moved on intently, exploring the bowls of the _Amacello. _

He found the Chief Engineer's office by accident. It was air conditioned and probably a good place to hide, given that people don't generally expect stowaways to be hiding behind locked doors.

Then again, Ben knew about Alex's special skills. To a certain extend, so did Wolf and Snake, and given that the four former SAS soldiers had chased Alex across the entire bloody continent, if they didn't know he could pick a lock, then they weren't doing their jobs well enough.

He needed a better option. His eyes raced around the cabin, wondering if there was anything here he could use to fight back and get off the ship, maybe commandeer the boat that the soldiers must have used to catch up to the _Amacello…_?

There were a whole bunch of filing cabinets, some family photos and a handful of paperbacks in the room, but nothing immediately useful. There was a pile of scuba gear in the corner – the engineer must be a diver, Alex surmised –the guy's desk was covered in clutter that Alex wouldn't even begin to be able to decipher, and -

Wait.

Scuba gear…?

Oh. Now there was a thought. He could use it to make a run – er, swim – for it. Even if he was seen diving in, the scuba equipment would allow him to stay deep enough that they'd have to work to find him, and that was after they managed to get gear of their own, which they might or might not have readily available. He'd have at least a ten minute head start, and at best half an hour, depending on how long it took them to find gear of their own to use. The coast of Turkey couldn't me more than an hour, hour and a half swim, and there was enough oxygen in the tank and backup cylinder to get that far.

God this was desperate and stupid.

Unfortunately, desperate and stupid were kind of the only options left available at this point.

Alex paused, looking down at the scuba gear. Maybe it would be better if he just turned himself in? Maybe he could save his energy, try and plot to escape MI6's grip later? There was almost no chance that this was going to work.

Then again, Alex thought about how small a chance most of his last minute desperate plans had of working, and resolved that he wasn't going to just roll over for MI6. If they wanted him, he was going to make them work for it every step of the way, until he literally could not take another step. He was going to take this as far as it would go.

And when he had?

Alex wondered about the .22 down his boot, thought about what it would mean to take his own life. He wondered if he could do it – if he could ever be backed into enough of a corner that he would willingly take that weapon and end it.

Life free or die. The words were so bloody easy, but Alex had spent far too much of his life simply fighting for his next breath to be able to let go anytime soon.

Either way, if he was going to be taking a swim, there was no way that the .22 would be usable once he emerged from the sea. The water would all but ruin the gun, and Alex would probably be better off abandoning it on the boat, along with everything else.

So he shoved the tanks and respirator into his bag, strapping the belt on underneath his shirt before snapping the chain of his compass onto the ring next to the pocket on his cargo pants. He'd try and remain innocuous and unseen for as long as he possibly could.

Once he was above deck, he picked a shadowy edge of the deck and assembled his gear as quickly as possible.

He hadn't done this is a long time, not since his uncle had taken him years ago, and this was a slightly different model than Alex was used to, but he had it operational before anyone spotted him. He left his travel bag in the shadows and kicked off his shoes. With a deep breath, he advanced towards the railing of the ship, hoping that nobody was looking.

Unfortunately, his hopes were foiled. He heard a shout from somewhere above him, followed by the sound of a tranquillizer being fired. He dodged and took two running steps forward, vaulting over the railing.

For a few seconds, he was in free fall, trying to orient his body to hit the water without hurting himself. And then he was plunging into the depths of the Aegean Sea. Breathing through the respirator, Alex sunk lower and lower, swimming forward as he did. He used his compass to head northeast. Each stroke of his arms brought him further and further away from the _Amacello, _and the soldiers that were trying to find him.

He hoped it would be good enough.

…

About an hour into his underwater swim, Alex saw bright beams of light cutting swaths through the water. He dropped down another five meters and kept swimming, beginning to become concerned about pressure sickness and the amount of time he was going to be underwater. He was already about twenty meters below the surface, which was relatively deep for someone who hadn't been underwater in as long as he was. He'd only ever gone to thirty meters with Ian.

Still, it was peaceful down here. It was too dark to really see much, but Alex was using the small LCD on his belt to read his compass and make sure he was going in the right direction.

He'd forgotten how quiet it was underwater. It was pleasant to be floating along in the water, closed off from the rest of the world, on his own. He felt safer than he had any right to at the moment, even with the searchers overhead. What, did MI6 get Greek coastal authorities involved in this mess?

Anyway, swimming at this depth with few distractions and little to do but think, Alex had time to come up with a modified plan.

The deeper he was, the harder he would be to find, but Alex was beginning to worry about the ever lowering level of gas he had left to complete this impromptu dive, and he had to come up sometime. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to deduce where Alex would come up.

All he had on him was a standard issue diving knife, and that wouldn't be too useful against four specially trained soldiers. Alex's own hand to hand combat skills would only take him so far, and he was still going to be screwed.

Spectacular.

The water was getting shallower now. The sandy ocean floor was rising up to meet him, and Alex was forced to ascend slightly to compensate. Soon he'd reach the beach, and he was going to have to be ready to run as soon as he hit solid ground.

Alex sighed. He was exhausted, and his body was just a stones throw away from giving up on him entirely, thanks to the last few weeks. He'd pretty much walked from Germany to Greece in backcountry woods and forests every step of the way, and this extended swim was proving to be the last straw.

He hoped he'd make it to safety before he collapsed.

Alex was taking longer and longer breaks, hoping that he could outwait anyone MI6 might have set up on the shore to catch him. He kept at it until he had about five minutes worth of oxygen left, and needed to ascend, or risk making the sea his grave.

He hit the surface all at once, glancing around to see where he was. There was a dark, empty stretch of beach ahead, and Alex dived back under, swimming hard towards the shore. Once he could keep both meet firmly fixed on the beach, he abandoned his diving equipment and trudged up beyond the shoreline, the sand giving way beneath every step.

Alex felt like he could sleep for a hundred years, but he had a long way to go yet before he was out of the woods. He had started jogging up the beach when a floodlight hit him, and the bright light blinded Alex.

Flinching, the teenager raised a hand to shield his eyes. He could see the shapes of four soldiers advancing on him, so he turned and ran, half blind and without any destination, knowing even as he did that this was going to be a useless initiative. He heard shots fired behind him, didn't waste his breath on swearing, but dodged and rolled, kicking up sand and spreading it across his soaking wet clothes, which weighed him down even more.

"Stop where you are!" A voice yelled from a megaphone. Somehow, Alex found the energy to raise one hand in a middle fingered salute, his lungs to desperate for air to yell something sarcastic back at his pursuers. Whoever had fixed up the floodlights, they weren't mobile, and Alex was back in the darkness again, angling up the beach to try and get onto more solid ground.

And then he hit the pier.

To his left, the rock face leading up to the main road was sheer and would be impossible to climb in time. He'd be tagged with a tranquillizer before he made it half a meter, and then he'd have to try to escape MI6 with a broken rib or arm. Behind him, the pier was a solid wooden wall, and the ocean was on his right, too far away to make much of a difference. Maybe he could make it over the wood –

Alex turned to examine the pier wall behind him, still panting for air as he tried to find a good handhold in the aged wood.

"Put your hands on the back of your head and turn around!"

Alex could see his final dead end coming, could do nothing but watch in horror as he hurtled towards it with no breaks, no way to bail out. This was it, then. This was where everything was going to end. Several thousand miles and nearly six months after first escaping MI6, he was going to be brought in again.

Turning around, Alex leaned against the wall, breathing heavily, watching his pursuers with wary eyes.

"Hey Ben," he finally said. "It's good to see you man."

The agent frowned slightly, not lowering his gun. Around him, Snake, Wolf and Eagle were keeping a careful watch on him, weapons raised in a silent, menacing warning to keep still. Alex ignored them and focused on Ben, knowing he still had a major apology to give the soldier he'd worked with what felt like a lifetime ago.

"Last I saw of you, you were in a bit of a bind," Alex said, keeping all four weapons in sight. "Sorry I couldn't come after you, but I'm really glad you're safe, and not just because I owe you my life a few times over."

His legs were screaming from the effort, no longer willing to keep holding up the weight of his body.

"As far as I'm concerned, you joining up with the guys that tortured me was a bit worse than not coming after me."

Alex laughed, unable to help himself. He felt shaky and unstable, scared and desperate and cornered, fear waging a war between homicide and flight inside his head, every breath a gasp for air, every beat of his heart a painful slam that fluttered through every bit of his body.

"Course, because you know me, always eager to pull a god damned trigger, yeah?" he asked. "Come on Ben, you know me better than that. You've worked with me, you have to know they didn't give you the whole story."

For a second, for a desperate hopeful second, he entertained the possibility that Ben might lower his gun, might believe Alex when he said he wasn't a traitor or a murderer. For that mad, ludicrous moment, he thought he might be able to bring the soldier over to his side.

But then Ben's features hardened into a mask of resolution, and Alex could see that he was wrong. It hadn't been much of a shot anyway, but it still hurt just a little.

"I know you're a traitor and a murder and that's enough."

Alex nodded, processing that.

"The only people I've ever killed are murders themselves," he said resolutely. "And I'm making no apologies for that, for ridding the world of child killers and genocidal sociopaths."

"There are plenty of people that see it differently, but the way I see it, you can defend yourself in person and let this whole thing get sorted out," Ben said calmly, and Alex knew that the older man was watching him carefully, just waiting for whatever last minute get out of jail free card the teenager was getting ready to play.

"Might as well shoot me Ben," Alex shrugged. "I'm not armed, don't have anything left to fight with. Finish your job or walk away. I've got nothing left to say."

He closed his eyes, trying to steady the desperate racing of his pulse running up a violent internal monologue of _noyoucan'tletthishappenyouneedtodosom ethingfightbackfightbackfigh tbackdamnyou _and stayed silent and still as he finally crashed into the dead end that had been racing up at him for weeks of desperate travel.

Inevitable impact came with the firing of a tranquilizer gun, and the sting of a dart in the middle of his chest, pumping sedatives throughout his body. Alex's legs shook again before giving out, sending him to his knees in the sand.

He was aware enough to see the four soldiers moving in on him, handcuffing his hands behind his back as he swayed, the grains of sand digging into his legs as he tried to shift into a more comfortable position.

And then he tumbled sideways onto the beach, staring up at the night sky, blurred from the fast acting effects of the tranquillizer. He heard someone speaking vaguely, and the mechanical response that told Alex that they were communicating with someone via radio.

He thought maybe he could see what Van Gogh must have seen in the night sky as the points of light blurred together, and then keeping his eyes open became far too much effort, and he struggled to take in one last breath, and fell into unconsciousness as he exhaled deeply, finally letting go.

This was it; the end of the road.


	9. Nothing Left To Say

Operation: Scorched Earth – Nothing Left To Say

**Hey guys. So, as many of you pointed out, this was supposed to go up a long time ago, but I've had a really crappy semester. Like, really really crappy. I've been going through a lot of stuff, both academically and personally, and I just have not been able to pull together any inspiration to write. This chapter was kind of rough to write all over just in itself too, but it's finally finished, so that's something at least. **

**The reactions to this series have been overwhelmingly positive, and you guys have given me the momentum to keep going even when I just feel like a massive pile of shit and my life sucks something major. Ya'll are the reason that after all this time, I'm looking down the barrel of finishing one of my largest, most rewarding writing projects I have ever completed. I appreciate your support more than I could possibly say, and I'd like to think that I am not often struck beyond words. ;D**

**Love, InK **

**… **

White.

Sterile.

Cold.

Those were Alex's first impressions of the waking world.

He had half been hoping that he wouldn't wake up at all, but he supposed it was just too much to ask for MI6 to just let him die when they had chased him across several continents and back.

Alex quickly took stock of what he knew, which wasn't much. He had no idea how long he had been out. He had no idea where he was – the nondescript and Spartan room he was currently in could be anywhere in the world. There were no windows or clocks to help him figure out what time of day it was. There was, however, a camera affixed to the ceiling near the far wall.

Given that the cot he was laying on was bolted to both the floor and the wall next to it, Alex judged that the camera didn't have any blind spots he could take advantage of. Great.

Physically speaking, Alex wasn't in terrible shape for an escape. His gunshot wound from Manchester was all but healed – Alex had miraculously sidestepped infection, and the wound itself was looking much better.

He was bruised all over – though most were at least a few days old. Alex judged that he'd probably been knocked out for maybe a day and a half, possibly two days, judging by the shade of his bruises and the stubble on his chin.

Alex experimentally pulled himself upright, stretching different muscles to make sure everything still worked properly.

He was sore all over, though Alex guessed that much of the stiffness in his body was due to the fact that he'd been immobile for so long.

Alex lay back against the wall. His bare feet brushed up against the cold metal of the floor, only barely touching it with the bottom of his toes.

In that moment, Alex Rider looked very much like the teenager he was, slouched against the wall behind his bed, feet scuffing at the floor.

In many ways, it's easier to function during combat. There's always something to focus on, a mission and a purpose to everything you're doing. It's after the fight, after you've run as fast and as far as you can, and everything is over, that things get hard.

Time – moving at a thousand miles an hour in the panic of a combat situation, your sympathetic nervous system running overtime to keep up with the fight or flight responses in your brain – slows to a painful crawl.

Alex was familiar with this particular aspect of his job. He'd spent a lot of his life waiting around for things to happen, hovering on the razor sharp edges between unbelievable boredom and near certain death. Time spent holed up in hospitals, on stakeouts, in hiding…Alex knows just how hard it is to wait. He knows MI6 will take their time and draw this out.

They've won, after all.

They have all the time in the world.

Alex settled himself down to wait. If MI6 were waiting for a break, he wasn't going to give them one.

They might be really great at cracking spies, but Alex isn't like any other spy the world has ever seen.

He wondered if they would torture him or just throw some more threats in his direction. He'd pretty much worked out that his relationship with MI6 had escalated beyond petty posturing, but he didn't know how far they were going to take this.

Would they stoop to torturing a sixteen year old kid?

Alex smiled humorlessly to himself. MI6 would never torture a child. Alex Rider, on the other hand, was more weapon than child. Alex Rider was an assassin with the mask of a schoolboy.

Or a schoolboy forced to play with an assassin's guns – but who really knew which Alex was anymore?

Hours of silence passed.

Alex swallowed against the dry feeling in his throat. He wished he had a crossword puzzle or something.

His stomach rumbled.

Time inched by.

Alex tried counting seconds to track how long he'd been left here, but he quickly got bored and lost count. He was leaning back against the wall, eyes closed, trying to entertain himself quietly when he heard the clang of metal.

The door swung open.

Alex's head snapped up, and he straightened his back.

"Bloody finally," Alex groused, putting just the right amount of British Schoolboy into the whine. "I was getting bored."

"Get up."

The order was issued from behind a reflective (and likely bullet resistant) mask worn by one of the guards that stood just beyond the exit, blocking the way to freedom.

Alex raised an eyebrow in response.

"And if I don't?" He challenged.

The guard pulled out his weapon and leveled it at Alex. It was probably only loaded with tranquillizer darts, but Alex was still wary of being caught on the other side of any kind of loaded weapon.

"I shoot you and drag your unconscious body where it needs to go."

Alex thought that over, looking between the guard and the gun, before standing up slowly, watching for any opening he could take advantage of.

"Hands."

Alex sighed and surrendered his hands, allowing the guard to cuff them together. The handcuffs were thick steel, bright and new, and clamped tightly around his wrists. The second guard shoved a dark hood over Alex's head while he was examining the restraints.

"Hey!" Alex called out, trying to jerk away as the two grabbed a bicep each and pulled him out of the room. Alex was led down a long hallway and into an elevator. They travelled for what felt like a long time, which concerned Alex. Were they going very far up or down? Either would pose challenges for an escape.

"Walk."

Alex was shoved forward. The trio made some rough turns through another maze of hallways. Intermittently, Alex heard the swipe of a key card and the press of buttons before a door was opened.

He was shoved down to sit in a cold metal chair, his wrists chained to a bar on the table in front of him. Alex resisted the urge to pull at the bonds, so unwelcome after so long just trying to remain free.

The hood was pulled off his face, and the teenager blinked as his eyes adjusted. He was facing a large mirror that reflected his own slightly disheveled appearance back at him. Alex supposed it was probably a two-way mirror.

The teenager leaned back in the uncomfortable chair, tilting back his head to stare up at the ceiling. It was smooth concrete, without so much as a stain to distract him.

The quiet sound of the handle turning drew Alex's attention to the door as it swung open, and admitted Alan Blunt.

"Hello Alan," Alex said, leaning back in his chair and letting a smirk cross his features to hide the sudden spike in anxiety.

It seemed that the director of MI6 had finally decided to clean up his own messes, starting with the teenage asset turned international terrorist.

"Alex, good to see you," Blunt said crisply. Polite, unreadable. Alex couldn't tell if Blunt was here to talk to him or put a bullet in his skull.

_Of course, if MI6 had decided to deal with me like that, I'd already be dead._

Blunt sat down in the chair across from Alex, making himself comfortable.

"You're a hard man to find, Mr. Rider."

"I like my privacy."

"Very much so, it would seem," Mr. Blunt replied. "You've gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid your duty."

Alex couldn't help the derisive snort.

"Duty?" he asked hollowly. "Alan, please don't go throwing around words like duty while I'm in the room. I did everything you ever asked me to, and when I finally got up the stones to say no, you labeled me an international terrorist."

"Aren't you?" The director of MI6 asked quietly. Alex looked at him incredulously, because _seriously? _But Blunt just pushed on ahead, ignoring the teenager's expression.

"Larceny-"

"Oh come on, I left most of those cars in good condition so they could be returned to their owners!"

"Theft, fraud, resisting arrest, arson, breaking into a top secret government facility, treason, murder-really Alex, this list is longer and more diverse than some of the most successful offenders on the most wanted list."

Alex's jaw clenched.

"Let's not play games," he said.

"I was never one for games," Blunt agreed mildly. Alex laughed hollowly at the irony.

"You and I both know that you will never charge me with anything."  
>"No?"<p>

Alex shook his head.

"See, Alan, if you were to try me, even in a military court, you'd have to explain yourself. And while you _might _get a judge to agree that I disobeyed your orders and refused a mission from my Queen while technically in her service, I doubt you want to publicly air the fact that you blackmailed a grieving fourteen year old into doing your dirty work."

A twitch was working at the muscle in Blunt's jaw, and Alex knew he'd scored a point.

"But no really, go ahead and charge me with that hefty list of crimes," the teenager shrugged, very nearly pulling of nonchalant. "Please. We can have a nice long talk about the schoolboy you sent after assassins and psychopaths and murderers, and then proceeded to use up until he had no choice left but to die on your orders or run for the hills. By all means, I would very much love to have that conversation on an official courtroom record. Might be the end of your job, mind, but hey, you might have a shot at landing me in jail. I say role the dice."

Blunt remained very still, and Alex was almost hoping that he'd broken the man.

The director of MI6 pulled a file from an inner pocket in his suit and laid it on the table between them. He opened it.

"We can get to some of the greater of those charges in our own time," Blunt said, as though he hadn't heard Alex. Which was very mature, for a grown man in charge of a powerful government agency, but Alex already kind of got the feeling that Alan Blunt only ever heard what he wanted to hear.

"Several months ago, you broke into an MI6 facility in London."

"Oh yeah, the Royal and General," Alex grinned. "That was fun. Nothing like a multiple story drop right onto concrete to make you feel alive, yeah?"

"You accessed secure, classified information that night."

"Did I?" Alex asked. He could remember, like an echo on the wind, Ms. Jones' voice telling him that the first and best strategy for interrogation was to deny everything. Well, he'd see how far he could take that.

"Our video logs show you in the computer room, downloading files onto a flashdrive. Where is it?"

Alex shrugged.

"Must have lost it."

Blunt slammed his fist down onto the table in front of them, the sound loud and starling in the quiet.

"I want to know what information you stole and who you gave it to."

Alex flinched at the murder in Blunt's voice and dropped the cocky act.

"Oh calm the bloody hell down," he said. "I downloaded a list of some of your employees, but I never decoded it. I needed something really juicy to serve as bait so I could get all of the remnants of Scorpia's board in the same room. The drive was hidden the whole time and I've since destroyed it."

"You're lying."

"If you say so."

"Where is the drive?"

"Its ashes were scattered in a back alley in London. Where are we, by the way? Are we still in the Royal and General?"

"Where did you keep the flash drive while this transaction was taking place?"

Alex glared at the director.  
>"Are you bloody kidding me?"<br>"Answer the question Alex."

"It was another bank," Alex sighed. "Turner and company, on the east side of town. They have security feed of a redheaded woman arriving at eleven oh two in the morning on the fifth. She's got a Black Sabbath T shirt and a ton of piercings. Super memorable. She took out a safe deposit box in the name Alan Blunt. You should be able to see her putting the drive in. I removed it personally a few weeks later."

Blunt closed the file and stood.

"We're done for now," he said.

"Does that mean I get to leave?" Alex asked.

Blunt paused by the door.

"You're a dangerous criminal Alex," the director said in a voice most people usually reserve for very difficult children. "You'll remain here pending an investigation into your status and everything that has happened since you went missing. We haven't even gotten started."

It didn't take Alex a very long time to realize that Blunt was _not kidding. _

…

"You killed off the board of Scorpia to take their place."

"Oh my god sod off," Alex muttered, leaning forward to rest his forehead on the cool steel. He was back in the same featureless room with the window, being interrogated.

"I've explained this four times already. I got rid of a bunch of psychopathic terrorists because they killed a fuck ton of people and were always going to have me on their radars."

…

"How many people does Gregorovitch have in his organization?"

"I don't know!"

"Where is his headquarters?"

"I literally have no idea."

"Who is working with him at the top of his organization?"

…

"You killed someone for money."

"Kind of? It's complicated. And it's not like the guy didn't have it coming-"

"How many people have it coming, Alex?"

"Right now? You're number one on my hit list. But I think you and I can objectively agree that the world is a better place without Joseph Kony, and I had to disappear, so it was kind of a win-win situation."  
>…<p>

"You were provided with protection by a terrorist organization on multiple occasions."

"Oh believe me, I paid in blood for that protection, and most of it was my own."

"But just to be clear, you threw in your lot with known terrorists."

"Sure, let's go with that. Even assuming I _was_ working with Yassen Gregorovitch – and I'm not – don't you think that somewhere, at some point, between Manchester and Turkey, I might have found a way to contact my alleged nefarious allies and have them send back up to help me out?"

…

"You crossed multiple national borders during your flight from arrest."

Alex was silent, resting his exhausted head on the crook of one elbow.

"Answer the question Alex."

"I'm sorry, was there a question in there?"

"How did you acquire the documents to legally cross national borders?"

"At first, I used the identification I got as compensation for the murder of Joseph Kony, since they weren't flagged. Once you wised up, I got more creative, climbing over fences and hiding in trucks. Was there any particular border you were wondering about?"

"I'll admit to some curiosity regarding your successful – and to all appearances – legal crossover into Kosovo, given the tense state of affairs in the nation. Did you have arms dealing contacts there?"

Alex actually laughed.

"No, but I did have a very nice friend by the name of Arta, who apparently sells homemade fireworks in Kosovo. She was kind enough to aid me in crossing the border."

"Would you like to elaborate?"

"No," Alex leaned back with a small smile. "I would like to know what the customs officials told you about the incident though."

There was an awkward silence.

"The report mentions something involving fireworks, a goat, a great deal of mud, and some minor disturbance in their main office, but the specific officials involved aren't willing to come forward with any details beyond that. Apparently their entire operations were halted, and the border ended up closed for ten days while they dealt with the fallout."

Despite the situation, Alex dissolved into laughter.

…

"What is the nature of your relationship with Yassen Gregorovitch?"

"I want to kill the bugger almost as much as I'd like to kill you."

"Is it sexual?"

Alex thought he might have thrown up in his mouth a little bit.

"Okay one, that's gross, he's as old as my _father,_" Alex put in. "And two, he's a bloke and I'm sure it escaped your notice, but I like women. Three, if I had the chance, I'd put a bullet in his skull. He's saved me a few times out of a misplaced sense of loyalty and guilt towards a dead man, and he's only ever wanted me out of his way. Apparently he's decided recently that meant me joining him, at which point I severed any line of communication to him and set off on a mad dash across… how many national borders was it?"

…

"You were present when a residence in Manchester was exploded. Can you tell me anything about that?"

"There was this child slavery ring. It was run out of a pub in Manchester by a woman named Piper. The agents in charge of handling her managed to get themselves killed, so I dealt with the smugglers and tried to get the kids out."

"Reports indicate that you were working _for _this woman, Piper McClane."

"I thought she was a normal pub owner! Most people don't wonder whether or not their boss is a sociopath that sells kids to make money!"

"But you're not most people, Alex."

"How could I be? You never let me."  
>"How much did Piper pay you to kidnap children off the streets for her?"<p>

"Piper paid me to wipe down tables and clean bathrooms, and later to deliver take out food. I found out sometime later that the take out was just a cover. By that time, I was already suspicious of her, so I bugged her. Once I knew what she was up to I did the best that I could to stop it, and that's the truth."

…

"How many people have you murdered since going off the radar?"

"I have ever only killed one person maliciously and outside a life or death situation," he said quietly. "Do you want to hear about it, Alan? Do you want to know how I walked into a military encampment and murdered a man named Joseph Kony? He was a monster and if you expect me to regret it, then that's tough. I may have blood on my hands, Mr. Blunt, but my conscience is clean."

Alex shifted, trying to get comfortable despite the fact that his hands were chained in front of him.

"Now, are we done with this?"

Silence.

"Lets start over from the beginning."

Alex groaned, letting his head fall back against the chair behind him.

…

The conversations went on, jumping back and forth between random accusations and long series of questions with answers Alex just didn't have.

Alex was beginning to go crazy, between the hours of enforced solitude and time spent locked in a box with a man he'd love ten minutes of privacy and a knife with.

Every day, he looked for his chance to escape, but there wasn't one. He was either in his cell, locked down tighter than the Queens jewels, or being interrogated by Mr. Blunt. Between those times he was escorted around with a bag over his head and his arms chained behind his back, with at least two guards at all times.

Every few days, he was allowed to shower under strict supervision. Alex had attempted to use the awkward situation to his advantage by goading his guard about watching a teenager in the shower, but he'd gotten no reaction whatsoever.

Alex was beginning to believe that he was never going to get out of here.

…

"There literally cannot possibly be any more to this than I have already told you," Alex moaned one afternoon, refusing to so much as look up at Mr. Blunt.

The stony faced director of MI6 remained silent, observing Alex carefully.

"What is it that you expect me to say?" Alex demanded. "You have picked apart every single piece of what I've told you, and I know you haven't found any of the inconsistences that you thought you would, because I'm _telling you the truth. _For pity's sake, admit that you made a mistake Alan, because there isn't anything left to this. I haven't conspired against you, not beyond my desire to free myself of your control."

And after that, he simply refused to answer any more of the questions that were posed to him.

…

And then one day, about two weeks into his confinement (Alex couldn't be sure, but it felt like two weeks, and he was trying very hard to keep track of time), it wasn't Alan Blunt who opened the door to the interrogation room.

Alex looked up to see the person he'd least expected to see.

"And here I thought you were sitting on a yacht in Rio, sipping cocktails while you stockpiled weapons for your own private little war," Alex said, glaring at the man in front of him.

"Well kiddo, looks like you've found yourself quite a bit of trouble," Ian Rider said, clearly ignoring Alex's comment in favor of pulling the chair out from the table and sitting down across from his nephew.

Alex was too tired to deal with this shit. There was a headache pounding at the back of his head, and he felt exhausted. He'd spent way too much time cooped up in small boxes, unable to escape, unable to fight back, unable to convince anyone that mattered that he was innocent.

Or at least as innocent as Alex Rider could possibly be.

"Well, Alan gets an A+ for creativity," Alex mused, carefully studying the face of the man sitting across from him. "It was a good effort, but there is nothing I can tell you that I haven't already said. I'm not the monster Blunt thinks I am, and I haven't done a third of the things he's accused me of. I did the best I could given the circumstances. And that's all I have."

Ian sighed, looking down at the file he was holding with a frown.

Carefully, deliberately, he closed it and pushed it away from himself.

"There's nothing I want from you Alex," Ian said softly. "I just want to tell you something."

Alex leaned back in the chair, glaring at his uncle.

"On my last mission for MI6, everything just fell apart. Gregorovitch wasn't supposed to be there. I panicked, and I was caught. And I realized as I was fleeing that my backup was gone and that I had been left, on my own. I had no idea that MI6 would leave me to rot in Scorpia's clutches."

"And yet, here you are on the other side of the interrogation table," Alex said dryly.

"I've been officially cleared," Ian said quietly. "Returned to duty, though not as an active field agent."  
>"You're still working for these tossers, after everything?" Alex demanded, incredulous. "You'll remember that when they thought that you were dead, they blackmailed your nephew into risking his life for them repeatedly-"<p>

"And you'll remember, Alex, that whenever you were given the chance, you dove back into this life anyway."

Alex opened his mouth to argue, but Ian tapped the file next to him.

"Damian Cray," Ian said. "You were explicitly told to stay away from him, but you kept digging, because you knew it was right. When you were given the option of walking away from Point Blanc, you went back in. You followed a man who looked suspicious to you from Wimbledon for no other reason than because he seemed suspicious. Alex Jonathan Rider, I have read your file and you are not a man who ever walked away from danger if he thought it would mean that others would be hurt."

Alex just rolled looked away, unimpressed.

"What are you then, the good copper?" he asked.

"Oh trust me Alex, I'm not the good copper," Ian said, folding his arms, and Alex caught a glimpse of the man who had raised him – a man of strict boundaries and principles that were as immovable as stone, a man that no kid would have crossed. There was a very good reason Alex had never gotten into trouble as a kid.  
>"I am telling you that you have done amazing things, not because you thought you would be rewarded – which you weren't – and not because you felt good doing them," Ian said. "You have, time and time again, been faced with the choice to turn away and allow evil to continue to exist, and time and time again, you meet that choice with the same answer, and I am damn proud of you."<p>

Alex became incredibly interested in the impeccable surface of the steel table in front of him.

"Maybe I'm not the man you think I am," Alex said quietly. "Perhaps I'm the killer and mass murderer your boss thinks I am."

Ian snorted.

"Why did you go looking for the car?"

"Sorry?"

"What in heaven's name possessed you to try and find my damned car?" Ian asked, and there was only a thin veneer of control to his voice.

"What the bloody hell does it matter now?" Alex asked.

"Because I want to know why this happened," Ian said. "And because I would like to prove a point."

Ian's expression was intense, and Alex was willing to bet that this was possibly the first time that Ian had allowed so much of himself to seep through. As an uncle, Ian had always provided Alex with everything he needed. He was caring - if sometimes distant – but he had never said himself bare as he was for Alex right now. Alex looked away, unaccustomed to see his normally stoic uncle in such an emotionally compromised state.

"Nothing I say will absolve you of what you did," Alex said bluntly. "You trained me to take your place, taught me the skills a spy would need, and then you abandoned me without so much as a warning about what would come, leaving me easy prey for the people that got you _killed."_

Ian looked down.

"I owe you answers," he said. "And I know I can't take back everything that happened to you, but I wish I could. I let Scorpia get into my head and root around in it for months. They had me so twisted up I didn't know which way was up, and by the time I had any conscious realization of what was happening to me, I was in one of MI6's interrogation cells, disoriented and confused. I failed you Alex, and I'm sorry."

Silence.

And finally Alex couldn't take it any more.

"A bloody car crash?"

Alex's question startled the older Rider, and he tilted his head, confused.

"You wouldn't even drive around the corner if you saw I wasn't wearing a seatbelt," Alex said, exasperated. "There's no way you could have kicked it in some bloody fender bender. Don't you remember that summer when I broke my leg on a hiking trail and you had to drive 200 miles to the nearest hospital? I've seen you drive Ian, and you're less likely to get into an accident than some professional stunt drivers. The day you die because you couldn't avoid an oncoming car is the day I'll admit my undying and passionate love for Alan Blunt."

Ian snorted, looking down.

"You lied one time too many, and you brought me up to be too curious to buy it," Alex told him quietly. He wasn't ready to forgive his uncle yet, maybe not ever.

"I suppose I did," Ian said softly. "I raised you to never turn away from danger if it meant leaving someone to be hurt, and you have never once turned your back on that."

"I'm glad someone here thinks so."  
>"I'm just going to put an idea on the table," Ian offered. "Tell Blunt whatever the hell he wants to hear. Agree with him, and move on. There is nothing that you can loose by going back to your job."<p>

"Yes, there is actually," Alex said coldly. "You said it Ian – I never walked away from what was right, and I'll not let it be thought that I ever did anything differently, not when it's untrue. I don't care to be thanked, or honored or whatever else for anything I've done, but I wont be vilified for the things I haven't. And I won't allow MI6 to control me any more. They have blackmailed me, threatened me, bullied me, and silenced me time and time again. I won't ever work for them again."

The two Riders stared each other down, stubborn personalities clashing in a silent duel. It was Ian who broke first.

"I suppose that's it," he said, gathering up his files.

"I guess it is then," Alex agreed. "I've told you lot everything I know and everything I've done, and that's the truth. I've got nothing left to say."

Ian nodded.

…

If MI6 thought that his meeting with Ian would shake him enough to give in, they were very wrong. Alex refused to allow Blunt to place on his shoulders the blame for a long series of crimes that were not his own.

The man was honestly delusional, and Alex was actually a bit frightened of what Blunt might end up doing if Alex continued to thwart his attempt to convince the teenager to "confess."

He knew Blunt was becoming frustrated. The man wanted Alex to give him answers, but Alex either couldn't supply them, or would have to lie in order to do so. The only answers Alex had denied his former employers were those that could incriminate certain others, like the Twins, or the few contacts that Anish had introduced him to.

He had considered, in the long hours of silence in his cell, Ian's idea of just copping to everything Blunt was accusing him of. After all, his life could hardly get much worse. Either way, he'd probably never see the outside world again. More likely than not, he'd spend the rest of his life in a small, six by eight cell no matter what he told MI6.

Maybe then Blunt would stop asking his stupid questions and he could finally have some peace.

But he couldn't bring himself to do that, to implicate himself and throw his own honor under the bus.

…

Three days after his meeting with Ian, Alex had had no contact with anyone – not his guards, not Blunt, and not Ian. He had been isolated for days, fed through a slot in his door ("How very 'Harry Potter' you tossers!" Alex had yelled through the door at the guards, but received no reply).

On the third day, his guards arrived to bring him to the interrogation room. Alex allowed them to cuff his hands together, and place the hood on his head, knowing that there was no point in fighting them.  
>Alex quickly realized, however, that his guards were not taking him to the usual interrogation room.<p>

His first clue came when he noticed that the journey was significantly longer than it had been when he was being taken to the interrogation room. His heart rate elevated at this change in pace, and his brain raced, trying to figure out what was happening.

He heard the beeping of some kind of electronic lock, and the swing of a door before he was pushed into another room. Before Alex could catch his balance, he was shoved on top of some cold metal surface – a table, Alex realized just a second before the guards were strapping him down tightly.

He yelled against the cloth of the hood and fought the hands that pulled his limbs into thick leather restraints, but he wasn't in a good position to fight back.

Alex was quickly subdued, and left shaking, strapped to the table, genuinely terrified for the first time since his initial capture.

The hood was torn from his face, and he looked up into the face of the director of MI6. The teenager tried to wipe the anxiety and fear from his expression, but he doubted that it was successful. Instead, he tried for anger.

"Quite brave of you, torturing a schoolboy."

"I'll have my truth, one way or the other Alex," Alan Blunt said stonily. "And words do not seem to make the point effectively enough to you. It is time, I think, to pursue more drastic measures."

Alex forced himself to breath deeply, trying to calm his racing heart, but there was triumph in Alan Blunts' unreadable face, and Alex knew that the man was fully aware that he was succeeding in trying to make Alex afraid.

"We'll speak later Alex," Blunt said, moving out of Alex's field of vision. "I fully expect you to be in a more cooperative mood when we do."

Alex heard the door swing shut once again, and made one last attempt to try and pull away from his restraints. It was useless.

Alex closed his eyes, trying to steel himself for what was almost certainly to come.

There was no way that this was going to end well.


	10. Setting Fires

Operation: Scorched Earth – Setting Fires

*** pokes head out from around the corner ***** So uh, how about them Yankees?**

**Okay I know its been a long time and I know I promised I'd be better with updating, but it has been a long six months for me too. I've been dealing with a ton of shit, and no single chapter in this entire fucking epic has given me nearly as much trouble as this one.**

**Y'all have been so supportive of me – hardly a week went by the last few months I haven't heard from at least one of you, and I feel so bad you've been left waiting for the next installment! Thank you all, you're perfect. **

**The good news is this: I've already written the ending. So I'll be posting a chapter a week until the epilogue, which I hope should be enough of a peace branch to be forgiven?**

…

Spies know better than anyone that any given tool is only useful in certain kinds of situations. Sometimes you need a couple of pounds of napalm and a firebomb, and sometimes you need a small bottle of arsenic and an opportune moment at a dinner party. You get the point: some situations require a sledgehammer, others an embroidery needle.

The thing that makes a spy particularly dangerous is their ability to know exactly which tool to use when.

For example; most of the time, spies fight their wars in the shadows, silent, unseen, unnoticed, quick and dirty.

But just because spies are trained to fight dirty doesn't mean they can't fight fair, and Ian Rider was one spy that knew how to shape the system to his advantage when he was motivated to.

And at the moment, Ian had some serious motivation working for him.

Ian Rider was angry – angry at himself, at MI6, at the world in general, but mostly Alan Blunt in particular.

He was sitting at his desk, blonde hair askew from the way he'd run his hands through it in irritation and anxiety, his lips firmly pressed into a frown.

The file on his nephew, the one that detailed the missions Alex had carried out on behalf of MI6 was laughably thin – and yet horrifying in both what it did and did not say.

Alex had been tortured, kidnapped, shot in the heart, beaten bloody, burned… Ian felt his hand tighten into a white knuckled fist at the thought.

He was proud of a lot of the things he'd done in his life. He harbored only passing compunctions about his decision to join MI6, given all the good he'd been able to do. He was proud of the way he'd raised Alex into a fine young man.

There were, however, less proud moments in his life. He'd known years ago that Jack didn't deserve to be saddled with the care of a teenage child, and had set in motion contingencies so that MI6 would be able to appoint his nephew a suitable guardian.

He'd never guessed MI6 would use that as carte blanche to blackmail and abuse Alex, though in retrospect, he probably should have. All the measures he'd taken to ensure that Alex would be able to protect himself made his nephew the perfect tool for MI6's needs.

And while he'd been slowly breaking to pieces under the torture of SCORPIA's most vile members, his nephew had walked through hell, and was still there.

The fact that Alan Blunt reminded Ian more and more of his own torturers every day left a sour taste on his tongue, and a heavy twist in his gut.

He had avoided prison or worse because he was 'useful' to Alan. Useful in that he was yet another tool Blunt could use to hurt Alex. Ian had tried to talk Alex into going along with whatever craziness Blunt was trying to stir up, just to save him time, give Ian a chance to fix things, but Alex was too stubborn, too well adjusted to doing the right thing.

Ian's time had run out, and his boss was hurting his nephew.

His jaw twitched.

When it came down to work or family, Ian had always chosen his job. He'd missed Christmases and birthdays and football games to run surveillance on drug dealers and suspected terrorists, to steal sensitive information, play bodyguard, and spy for the British government.

But this was different.

When John had faced the threat of violence against his son and wife, he had gone off the deep end trying to protect them. Ian had that same instinct – part of him was tempted to take the standard-issue nine millimeter from the drawer in his desk, walk right up to Alan Blunt, and empty the full clip into the man's face.

As happy as that fantasy might be, Ian knew that there were better ways of handling this situation. For all John had been the better spy, Ian had always been the more thorough, less impulsive of the two.

He was going to prove that now.

And maybe in the process, he'd get to set a few fires and watch MI6 burn for everything they had done to the Riders.

Alan Blunt trusted Ian, as much as Blunt trusted anyone, really, and by maneuvering himself into the man's good graces, Ian had what he needed to make his move against the director of MI6.  
>Ian smirked humorlessly, picking up his phone.<p>

For once, he was going to fight his wars out in the open; and it was even going to be legal.

Mostly legal, anyway.

Like he said, Ian was never one to throw away a chance to set a few fires.

…

Alex hit the cold linoleum with a slam that jarred his shoulder and sent his already strained lungs gasping for breath.

He was completely soaked with freezing water, but he wasn't shaking from the cold that gripped him down to his very bones, but the immediate memories of being unable to move, to even breathe, of water filling up his lungs and throat and nose –

Alex took a deep, gasping breath, reassuring himself that he still could, his lungs still protesting after their abuse.

He didn't know how long he'd spent huddling against himself in his cell, but the door opened hours later. Two guards pulled him up to his feet and brought him to the shower, where at least he managed to get warm and then –blessedly – dry.

The hot shower had chased the cold lingering in his bones, but Alex felt broken, somehow, more fragile.

He knew Blunt was escalating, and that it was only a matter of time before things got even worse than they already were. Alex's imagination with regards to being torture was in no way limited, and he didn't want to think about what Blunt would do to him to "convince" him to implicate himself and go back to working for MI6.

Because he had no delusions about what the point of this little exercise was.

Alex wasn't that scared little boy any more, though.

Unfortunately, Alex's utter lack of willingness to put up with Alan Blunt's bullshit did not get him any closer to escaping. He hadn't had a single sliver of an opening to capitalize on since he'd woken up in a cell, and he wasn't likely to get one without any help.

Well, shit.

Alex realized that a new set of clothes was sitting in the corner – at least he could be assured that Blunt didn't want him to die of hypothermia – and went about getting himself dry and as warm as possible.

Five minutes later, he was still shivering, but he was dry, which was an improvement. Alex dropped himself onto the single cot, trying not to let despair overwhelm him.

Even as exhausted as he was, sleep was a long time in coming.

…

The explosion that rocked the floor woke Alex with a jolt, and he swore violently as his body made painful and unexpected contact with the floor. The door swung open, and Alex caught a glimpse of smoke and the whiff of fire before he realized that neither guard was watching him.

Alex took less than a second to decide to take the risk and utilize the opportunity that had been dumped into his lap, and he threw himself into motion.

He was weaker than he'd been in a long time and groggy from sleep, but Alex had been doing martial arts since he was a child, had utilized it to save his life in a very practical way, and practiced hours on end until his form was perfect. His body moved on pure instinct, using moves that required the least amount of force to do the most damage.

A kick to the groin was a kick to the groin, after all.

With both guards out, Alex took stock of his situation.

He could hear a siren blaring in the distance, and the smell of smoke was thick on the air, drifting along the ceiling.

The building was on fire.

Awesome.

And Alex meant that in a totally genuine, non-sarcastic way. This was the opportunity he needed, and he fully intended to use it to the best of its potential.

Alex glanced down at the unconscious guards, and remembered weeks of being dragged through this godforsaken building, sightless journeys with nothing but the swipe of key cards and the click of electric locks.

He was going to need one of their ID badges. Alex ruffled through the smaller one's pockets until he found an ID holder with a name and a barcode. There was no other information.

It was a pretty good bet that was what Alex was looking for. He pocketed the ID card, standing quickly. He needed to make a call about which direction to run in. Between the obvious fire and the prospect of getting caught by more guards, Alex needed to move.

He hesitated just one more second, glancing towards his one way out.

If he stole the guard's clothes, he'd be much less likely to be caught in the chaos from the explosion. In the clothes he'd been given when he got to this facility, he was sure to be spotted almost at once.

He stripped the smaller guard of his outer jacket, pants, and shoes. The fit was imperfect, but it was an added layer of security – plus he now had two weapons – a tranquilizer gun and a taser.

Alex left both unconscious guards in his own cell, and slammed the door behind him as he left.

He'd already wasted too much time, and he was getting the hell out of here.

The hallway extended in either direction, simple, white, and unmarked. It was a fifty-fifty guess which way would get him out of here.

Alex closed his eyed, flipped a mental coin, and took off running to the left.

And – Yes! The door at the end of the hall on his left was a stairwell. Alex swiped the card, holding his breath until he heard the familiar, telltale click of the lock.

He pulled open the door and caught a face full of black smoke billowing out from the lower floors. Wherever the fire was, it was down.

Well, that made this call a bit easier. Alex had no idea if he was just trapping himself on the roof of a burning building, or getting closer to the exit, but he couldn't go towards the flame.

Where were the rest of the guards? Alex wondered as he climbed, holding the top of his shirt over his mouth and nose to make sure he wouldn't inhale too much smoke. Surely he should have seen someone by now, surely someone had seen that he was no longer in his cell and sounded the alarm?

But the piercing, screaming ring of the fire bell continued to echo in the perfectly empty stairwell.

Alex made it up two levels before a second explosion hit.

The floor rocked violently, and Alex barely remained standing, holding the railing as the building shook.

Alex took the next floor at a run, but he wasn't as fit as he'd ever been, and his lungs were heaving, the smell of acrid smoke filling his mouth and lungs despite his efforts to avoid breathing it.

He'd gone four floors up before he started to see damage from the second explosion. An entire section of the stairs above him was completely blown out, the remains of some kind of laboratory visible in the massive hole in the wall beyond. Fire had claimed most of the floor, and thick black smoke was pouring from the exit.

Covering his face with his arm, Alex jumped over the missing steps. His eyes were watering against the smoke, and he couldn't _breathe, _and he could feel the searing heat of the fire against the wall to his right, slowly claiming the building.

Alex needed to get out of here.

He felt someone grab his arm blindly, and Alex twisted away, blindly kicking out in the smoke.

His attacker fell away and Alex pushed on, spurred forward by adrenaline and fear.

The teenager could feel his lungs heaving for air, desperate for a clear breath.

He coughed, stumbling over the next few steps. One hand was braced against the wall next to him, the only thing that kept him moving in the right direction, because he couldn't even see where he was going anymore.

Oh god he was going to die of smoke inhalation trying to escape a secret prison.

Alex pressed forward, desperation the only thing keeping his weak and shaking body on his feet. He stumbled on another landing, and heard a distant echo of shouting through the smoke. He took the next floor cautiously, trying to catch a glimpse through the thinning smoke of something that could tell him if he was going in the right direction.

But all this smoke had to be going somewhere, right?

He tripped over the next step and fell to his knees, splitting one of them as he collapsed on all fours.

His limbs were shaking, and he could barely take in a breath. Every bit of him hurt. Alex was completely spent, and he felt the chilling realization that he was going to die here settle over him.

More voices and shouting could be heard, but it was closer, less distant now. He could make out words over the blaring of the fire alarm.

"There's someone there – "

The voice came from right behind him, and Alex tensed, readying himself to try and fight back when one of the guards grabbed his arm and pulled it over the guards shoulder.

"Come on lad, lets get moving!"

The guard helped Alex stumble farther up the steps. For a moment, Alex was confused, wondering why the guard wasn't fighting him, but his oxygen deprived brain finally kicked into gear. He was covered in soot, the whole stairwell was full of smoke, and he was wearing a guard's uniform.

Blessing the extra minutes he'd taken to steal the outfit, Alex let the guard next to him pull him up another set of stairs and through a door being held open by more guards.

Alex fell to his knees on the metal outside, drawing in deep breaths of precious air.

"What about the prisoners on the lower level?"

From very far away, he heard the guard that had pulled him up to safety speaking to another guard.

"Being evacuated by boat with the rest of the guards, you lot are the last ones out. They're evacuating everyone to a secure facility on land."

The alarm was still going, and Alex recovered himself enough to realize that he needed to move, needed to assess where he was so that he could escape.

He opened his eyes.

He was on a ship – a massive one, by the look of it, bigger than some of the aircraft carriers and battleships he'd seen. He'd stumbled out of an exit onto a landing close to the bow of the ship, and over the guardrail he could see the expanse of ocean stretching out before him. As he pulled himself away from the smoke, he could smell the clean, sharp scent of the ocean.

Alex pulled himself to his feet as the handful of guards still on deck began sorting themselves out, organizing efforts to evacuate. In the confusion, he stumbled away, around a corner and towards the side of the ship.

He didn't see the guard that had pulled him out take off his mask, nor did he see the way the man's blue eyes followed Alex's smaller form as he took off for cover.

Alex definitely didn't see the small smile that twitched at the corner of Ian Riders mouth as his nephew made his bid for freedom. He'd gone down to the lower deck to make sure that Alex used his transfer as a chance to escape, but the teenager had already made better use of the opportunity than Ian would have believed, given the boys condition. Now, it was up to Alex, who remained oblivious of his uncle's interference.

Though to be fair to Alex, he was a little occupied.

He needed to figure out where he was, and then he needed to get off this damn ship.

He hadn't gone very far when something caught his eye, and an idea sparked.

There was a helicopter on deck.

Alex grinned to himself. Perfect. He'd get away faster by air, and from the chopper, he'd be able to get his position and head towards land.

From there – Alex had no idea what he'd do, but he'd worry about that when – or even if - he managed to get that far.

Taking a deep breath and drawing on the last of his strength, Alex stumbled across the ship between himself and the helicopter. His feet fell heavily on the metal of the ship, but in the chaos around him, nobody was paying attention to one more guard. Alex didn't know how long he had before someone noticed he wasn't being evacuated with the rest of the prisoners, and started looking for him, but he wanted to be gone before that happened.

The heat of the sun blared down on him as he finally collapsed into the side of the chopper, and Alex allowed himself a second to recover and appreciate the natural light.

He'd been certain just a few hours ago that he was never going to see the sun again.

And he might never again if he didn't get moving, so he pulled open the door and practically fell into the pilots seat.

Okay. Helicopter. This couldn't be too hard. He got the blades whirring, and just as confused glances started being cast in his direction, the chopper began lifting off the deck.

"Attention Viper seven, you do not have permission for takeoff, please proceed to the emergency lifeboats – repeat, you do not-"

Alex hit the off button, closing the radio. He literally could not give less of a shit.

And as the helicopter rose high above the ship, Alex laughed.

Checking the dashboard for coordinates, Alex maneuvered the chopper heading north. He was in international waters at the moment, but in a few hours, he'd reach the coast of Iceland. Britain was closer, but he figured it might be best to avoid England for as long as the government was considering him a terrorist.

Slowly, the smoking ship faded into the background, and Alex breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that nobody was coming after him. MI6 was likely to busy organizing the ships evacuation to bother with a single guard disappearing with a helicopter, but once they realized Alex was missing, they'd be right on his tail.

Odds were, they had all their choppers tagged too, so Alex wasn't quite out of the woods just yet.

Still, it was nice to feel the breeze on his skin, the fresh sea air clearing his head and keeping him awake.

He could crash as soon as he was somewhere safe.

The sun was beginning to set as he reached the coast.

Alex navigated the chopper down towards the sand. There was a couple on the beach, and they stared at the teenager as he stumbled out of the chopper, exhausted, covered in soot, dried blood covering one arm.

Alex waved to them, smiling awkwardly.

He turned away, walking along the beach. From the map in the chopper, there was a city near this stretch of coast. Alex figured he'd see if he could catch a train further inland, and put some distance between him and the pursuers that couldn't be far behind.

Sure enough, Vik had a train station and Alex bought tickets for a train going to Stokkseyri in an hour. He'd found about a hundred pounds tucked away between the pages of a book in the passenger seat, and transferred it to Icelandic Krona. While he waited, he picked up new clothes and scrubbed himself clean of soot. A blond teenager of average height and build would be difficult to spot, and he figured he still had some time before MI6's hounds started sniffing around Vik.

He managed to stay awake until he got on the train, and after the teller had punched his ticket, he curled up.

He wasn't sure if he fell asleep, or had passed out, but he was unconscious most of the night.

It was noon by the time he woke, and the train was a little under halfway to Stokkseyri. The journey was a little over 30 hours. Alex was down on funds, but he bought himself a sandwich and a bottle of water from the cart that came by a little after he'd woken up, and devoured it. His stomach was cramping from hunger, and he hadn't eaten a decent meal in… well, Alex didn't want to dwell too strongly on that, because it would mean sparing more than a passing thought for what Blunt had done to him.

The truth made his skin crawl and made him shiver in the perfectly warm train car. Blunt had tortured him, had locked him inside a tiny box and tried to force him to admit to being a criminal so that MI6 could blackmail him into working for them again. It was wrong, so damn wrong, and why did they have to keep chasing him? What was it about him that made him such a target? Why him? What did god or the universe have against him?

Because surely there was no way a single person could be so unlucky without the intervention of a malicious god.

He didn't even realize he was crying until he tried to suck in a shaking breath and felt his chest falter as he started full on sobbing.

He cried for the childhood he'd lost, for all the times he'd been hurt and never had anyone there for him, for everything that had done to him, everything he'd suffered and survived and had to come out on top of. He cried for all the things in the future that might be waiting for him, for the fear that he might be seconds away from being recaptured by MI6 and shoved in another small metal box, and as he dwelled on that possibility it became oddly difficult to so much as breathe.

And if Alex took a few hours to give himself over to weeping for everything he'd lost in an empty train car headed north along the Icelandic coast, it was his own damn business.

He slept afterwards, a longer, more natural sleep. When he woke in Stokkseyri, he was still in pain from his escape, but his mind was clearer, and he was ready to go back to running from MI6.

He used the last of his money to buy a motel room for the night. He hoped that MI6 was still sniffing around Vik, because he was far from recovered, and he felt like he could sleep for another year, despite having slept most of the train ride here.

He hadn't gotten more than a few hours sleep at a time since… well since about the same time as he'd been able to claim he was eating regular meals and that was back in Manchester, when he and Anish had shared an apartment and Alex was unwittingly working for a child slavery ring and Anish was slowly building his trust so that he'd be vulnerable to Yassen Gregorovitch's suggestion that he come work for him.

And jesus, did _everyone _in the world have an agenda that included using Alex? Because he was getting seriously sick of it all. He wondered what he'd have to do to change his name and retire so that nobody would come looking for him.

He wasn't a pawn in the world of shadows and spies. He was far more valuable, far more dangerous than that. Maybe once he had allowed himself to be used because he hadn't known any better. But even a pawn can turn into a queen if it advances far enough forward, and Alex had come farther than even he might have believed the day he'd taken off running from MI6.

He didn't know how exactly he planned on doing so, but he was going to make sure nobody was going to use him. He was his own person, and he wasn't going to let anybody own him.

That pleasant thought lulled him to sleep.

…

Alex was thrown into wakefulness by a knock at the door. Groaning, he pulled his aching body off the bed and stumbled towards the door.

Checking that he still had the tranquilizer in the back of his pants he opened the door a crack.

The sight of two men in suits outside brought him to full alertness.

"Alex Rider?"

"Sorry, wrong door," Alex attempted to close the door on the man in the suit, but the other man was much too quick, and managed to jam his foot in the door.

"We're just here to talk, that's all."

"Yeah right," Alex snarled from the other side of the door. He heard an exasperated sound from the other side of the wood, and then he was thrown backwards by a particularly violent thrust of the door.

He went sprawling on the floor, helpless to stop the two men in suits from entering the room and closing the door behind them. The tranquilizer clattered off out of Alex's reach as he grabbed uselessly for it.

"Sorry for the invasion," the first man said, extending his hand to Alex to help him up. Alex didn't take it, getting to his feet and putting as much space between him and the two goons in suits as he could.

"We are here on behalf of our boss," the first man continued when Alex didn't say anything. The teenagers' features hardened.

"I don't want anything to do with the bastards in MI6," he said. He was still trying to determine why they hadn't just shot him or dragged him off already – it wasn't like Blunt had ever shied away from making a scene when he really wanted something.

"We don't represent Special Operations," the man in the suit said blankly.

"So who do you represent?"

"We're security for the Internal Affairs department," the first suit said. "I think this will clarify the situation somewhat." The man reached inside his suit and Alex tensed. Noticing the teens reaction, the man slowly drew out a thin envelope.

"Easy there, it's just a letter," he said, reaching out to give Alex a folded piece of paper. Alex took it reluctantly, not opening it yet.

"Why on earth does someone from Internal affairs want to talk to me?" he asked.

Suits numbers one and two shrugged in unison. Alex got the feeling it wasn't really their job to know the answers to the questions he had.

He looked back at the letter and frowned. Unable to contain his curiosity, he broke open the envelope and pulled out the piece of paper inside.

_Mr. Rider, I do apologize for the cloak and dagger routine, but it was imperative that I contact you without being traced. Internal Affairs requests your presence to discuss an ongoing case in our department. If it is convenient to you, the emissaries delivering this letter will provide you an escort to our offices so that we may speak discretely. This is, as I have stated, a request. My men are under orders to leave should you tell them to. Without disclosing too much, I would like to say that I believe we have a great deal to talk about and a meeting would be only of benefit to both of us. _

There was no signature.

Well, that was appropriately vague, if only slightly ominous. Part of Alex was tempted to see if the goons in suits would leave if he told them to as the letter said. The other, larger part was now curious as all hell, and never let it be said that Alex Rider didn't do dumb things in the name of sating that curiosity. Going with these guys could be a huge risk – he might be handing himself right back over to MI6. But if they really weren't working with special operations, then what exactly did they want?

It seemed the only way he was going to get the answers he needed was by putting himself out on the line.

Besides, it really was only a matter of time before MI6 caught back up with him, or worse, Gregorovitch and his ilk. It looked like there was another player on the board this time around though, and Alex's instincts were telling him that he might have an ally in this game.

That, or he was about to maneuver himself right into a trap.

Then again, if he refused and this _was _a trap, he wasn't in a position to take down either guard. He was hurt, unarmed, and still weak from his time as a guest of MI6, and either of the two men in front of him could take him down before he reached the tranquillizer gun across the room.

Ah well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. What the hell, right?

"Okay," he said, tucking the paper into his back pocket as he stood. He hoped he wasn't making a bad decision here. "Lets do this then."

He followed his escorts out into the cold morning air. It was still dark, and a light mist hung on the air, muffling the light from the street lamps along the road.

The blue sedan was entirely non-descript, which pleased Alex's sense of paranoia. If these guys really weren't with MI6, at least they were using a car that wouldn't be easily traced. He sprawled in the backseat, forcing himself to relax into the appearance of nonchalance.

If he needed to make a run for it, he wanted to make sure he at least had the element of surprise.

They drove through the unfamiliar city, navigating the empty roads. Within about fifteen minutes, they stopped in front of a sleek office building.

"Come on then," suit number one said, and Alex followed him into the building, past a reception desk and to a set of elevators.

Upstairs, the two men in suits led Alex into an office. A glance registered three bookshelves along one side of the room, and a comfortable couch along the other. On the opposite side of the room (and not at a convenient angle to the large windows on his right that it would be easy to take a shot at it) a desk was piled with folders.

Most had been closed and pushed into a kind of tidy pile to one side. A few were open however, laid out in front of a rather satisfied looking woman sitting behind the desk.

She was young, maybe in her thirties, with dark hair pulled up into a simple bun and very muted makeup. Alex caught 'professional' in every line of the woman's body.

"Thank you for your assistance gentlemen, in seeing Mr. Rider here safely," she told the suits behind Alex. "You're dismissed."  
>She remained silent until Alex heard the door click shut behind him, and turned her attention to the teenager standing in her office.<p>

"Hello Mr. Rider," she said, and there was a glint of triumph in her eyes when she said it, a small quirk of a smile at the edge of her lips. "You are a difficult man to find. I had to come all the way to Iceland just to catch up with you."

"I try very hard," Alex acknowledged, ignoring the woman's gesture to take a seat in the chair in front of him. "Which begs the question, how _did _you find me?"  
>"We appropriated the tracking equipment special operations uses to keep track of their helicopters," the woman shrugged. "From there, it was fairly simple to deduce that you'd head for the hills, since Vik is hardly a big enough city to hide for an extended period of time. Security cameras caught you leaving for Stokkseyri, so I set up shop here."<p>

"Well, you obviously know me, which puts us on slightly uneven ground, seeing as I don't know you."

"My name is Virginia Allen, and I am an attorney with Internal Affairs in the Special Operations division."

That was the second time he'd heard that phrase, and it made no more sense to Alex than it had the first. If this woman was working with Special Operations, surely he'd be in handcuffs by now? Assuming she was the one who had written the letter that had been delivered to him, she'd been fairly clear that she wasn't working with special ops at all.

"Well, Virginia Allen, in my experience, people chasing me down usually want to use me or kill me. Which of the two are you?"

"The first," the woman said, without batting an eye, and Alex felt something deep inside of him flinch at the prospect. His instincts weren't screaming at him to run, which, combined with the no doubt armed guards waiting outside was why he hadn't attempted to bolt yet, but one wrong word from this woman would send him straight for the door.

"What is it that you want to use me for?" Alex asked, playing her game, for now.

"Several months ago, my office received a call from an old friend of mine, a source high up in MI6. We were assured that if we were to dig deeper into the deaths of certain agents of the British government, we would find a rather large, rather disturbing scandal that would horrify the public if they were to catch wind of it."

Now that was new.

"I followed up on the tip that was left on my desk by this sources contact in Internal Affairs, and I found some seriously _horrifying _things."

"What source?" Alex asked, interested despite himself. He unfolded his arms and let his hands rest on the back of the chair, watching the woman in front of him.

"I'm not at liberty to disclose that information," the lawyer said with practiced calm. "I followed my sources lead, and it took me to the suspicious death of one Ian Rider."

Alex inhaled sharply.

"From there, I learned a great deal about the abuses of power that MI6 has been engaging in. You, Alex, are only the tip of a very large iceberg of corruption in the special ops division going back nearly two decades."

Alex lifted his eyebrow. Somehow he wasn't surprised, and he was still waiting to hear what Virginia Allen wanted from him.

"I can see you're not impressed," Virginia said. "Let me be more clear about my intentions here: I'm compiling a case against Alan Blunt to be heard by military tribunal. I'll get him on over a dozen charges, but he'll walk away from most of them by virtue of his position and reputation. I want to crucify him, to burn him and his reputation to ashes and dust, and there's no way he walks away when your involvement is brought up. Even his friends in the government won't be able to do anything for him when they find out that he's been using a schoolboy as a spy."

For perhaps the first time in his life, Alex couldn't come up with a single clever comment to disguise his very real shock.

"What Mr. Blunt did to you was wrong," Virginia said quietly. "What Alan Blunt has done in general is plain horrifying, and makes him an awful director in SIS, but it's his abuse of you in particular that makes him so reprehensible as a human being. I'm saying that only knowing a fraction of what you've been through, and I'd hazard a guess that there's a lot more crap I'm going to wish I'd never heard about once I do. I want to give you the chance to take a good legal shot back at him."

"And make your career, I suppose" Alex guessed, deflecting the sympathy this attorney was offering him. Virginia smirked a little.

"I'm already head of Internal Affairs, and I got here all by myself," Virginia told him. "Winning this case? Yes, it'll make me look good. But I'm exactly where I want to be, and right now, I want to do my job, and part of my job is body checking people like Alan Blunt when they go too far out of line."

Alex liked the sound of that.  
>"<em>If<em> I were to testify," Alex began, pacing a few steps to his left. "If I were going to, what would you want me to say?"  
>"Everything," Vriginia said immediately. "We'll go over the specifics of course, but I want the tribunal to hear in gruesome detail about every single mission you underwent while in the service of Alan Blunt and MI6. Right now, I've only got the barest bones, and I want to interview you in depth to make sure they get it all. And so that I'm prepared to give them evidence about everything you'll say."<p>

Alex stood in silence, thinking that over.

"If it makes a difference, odds are, your testimony would never be made public," Virginia said finally. "This is an internal tribunal set up specifically to audit the actions of Alan Blunt, and discover how far his corruption in the organization has spread. Nobody is ever going to want it to get out that the British government allowed a teenager to be used the way MI6 has used you, so your anonymity will be protected. Come back to London to testify, and we'll set you up in a safe house so that they can't get to you before we put away those responsible for hurting you."

Alex exhaled deeply.

He thought of everything he'd been through.

Thought of all the missions where he'd almost died a hundred times over.

Thought about the fact that if he were a little less lucky, he'd have died at the hands of a giant jellyfish, or snowboarding down a mountain on an ironing board, or getting shot in the heart or launched over a waterfall or tortured in a dungeon on Gaza. About how many times he's been controlled and used by Alan Blunt and MI6, by SCORPIA, and even by Yassen Gregorovitch.

And he remembers that he's resolved, more than anything, to never be manipulated like that again. To never be used, never be that scared, frightened boy just trying to survive ever again.

It's not like he never wants to be a secret agent. At this point, he's not sure he'd ever be safe if he backed out of the shadows, and he's not even sure he'd want to.

He doesn't know what other path he could take forward, but he does know that he's going to do it on his terms.

This is his call, his decision. He's the one calling this play, and he knows exactly what move he wants to make.  
>He considered that very satisfying prospect, and nodded.<p>

"Okay," he said, meeting Virginia's eyes. "I'll give you what you need."

The words taste like victory leaving his lips.

….


	11. Blaze

Operation: Scorched Earth – Blaze

**First off, check me out, getting two chapters out in two consecutive weeks! **

**Second, some thoughts; I'm officially pre-law, and I was mulling over how I would go about building a case against Alan Blunt. How I would verify the testimony of a teenager claiming to have been used as a spy by MI6. And this is how I would do it.**

**There's a lot of recap happening in this chapter, don't get me wrong. It's not my typical action heavy chapter, but it's the space Alex needs to deal with everything that's happened to him. I also think that this is a necessary scene to have, because it felt like just putting Blunt away as an afterthought after all this just wasn't right. **

**Enjoy! **

**~InK**

…

Three days after their encounter in Iceland, Alex was in Virginia Allen's office in London, telling her his story.

It took the better part of a week to get everything out, and even after that, she kept digging for information – details Alex had almost forgotten or never considered terribly important, questions about who was present when certain events unfolded, things like that. He was living at a safe house being guarded by a security team hired by Internal Affairs.

Virginia informs him that the warrant for his arrest has been revoked, and the Interpol file on him has been deleted, but the only reason he feels even a little safe is because he knows Alan Blunt is being held in custody. Even so, he only sleeps a few hours every night, and when he does, he wakes in a cold sweat.

Reliving these memories was painful for him, like poking at a raw wound. Some of the horrifying things he'd lived through are worse than others, to be truthful, but there is more than enough fuel for a lifetimes worth of nightmares in Alex's past.

Virginia listens with a calm expression and without comment or judgment. She prods at his story, trying to get all of it, but doesn't react with the horror he'd expected, which helps. He doesn't think he could handle her pity on top of his own pain, though he can see the look in her eyes when he comes into her office with another pack of energy drinks and shadows under his eyes.

She wants to help him, but doesn't know how to other than telling his story.

"You're letting this beat you," she told him seriously one afternoon. "And you can't let what happened own you. You're strong, Alex, and you're going to be okay. I know you're not fine now, but that's okay, because you will be."

Alex doesn't know how to tell her that his memories aren't beating him. They kicked his ass and left him for dead in a dark alley.

But when it all came down to it, Alex was still alive, and if there was anything he'd learned, it was that so long as he was still breathing, he could keep moving forward.

And for the first time, Alex felt like there was a hazy someday somewhere in his future where he would be okay with everything he'd been through.

That day wasn't today, or even tomorrow, but he knew he was going to be okay.

A huge part of getting there meant ripping open these old scars, if only so that he could bring about the end of Alan Blunt.

He was going to bring that man down, no matter what.

Alan Blunt had used Alex in part because of the destruction he knew the teenage spy brought with him. Alex Rider was an inferno of fire and ice and destruction, and people who pissed him off usually lived long enough to regret it.

Alan Blunt now topped the list of people pissing Alex off.

Alex learned that the tribunal was going to be a closed military hearing. The court would hear testimony about the actions of MI6 and in particular, those of Alan Blunt. Virginia confided that his guilt was pretty much already assured. What they would be discussing in court was the degree to which he would have to pay for his crimes, and just how far his corruption had spread in the Special Operations division.

Alex wasn't going to be permitted to watch the majority of the testimony – most of the information that was going to come out was highly classified even for him. Anyway, Virginia had told him that he'd be there for all of the testimony that directly pertained to his own situation. Alex tried not to enjoy the wolfish grin that took over his attorney's face when the woman pointed out just how many opportunities Alan Blunt had given her to wrap a noose solidly around his neck.

Virginia had also told him most of the other testimony about him was just icing on the cake. The centerpiece of her case was going to be Alex himself, and the witnesses she'd tracked down to corroborate his testimony.

Even after weeks of going through every detail of his story, Alex still wasn't sure how he felt about bringing everything he'd done into the limelight. He was, however, sure that he never wanted to be manipulated again, and this was the only way he could see of making that happen.

…

At half seven the day he was to begin testifying, Virginia arrived at the door of his safe house with a bracing smile and two cups of coffee, one of which she handed to him.

"Are you ready Alex?" she asked gently.

Alex nodded, thanking her for the coffee. He was wearing one of his old suits, the one Sabina had gotten for him. He'd asked Virginia to send someone back to his house for it, when she'd asked if he had anything appropriate for their court date.

"Just remember," Virginia said as they walked out to the black car that they were travelling in. "Remember what I said before; Stick to the truth. Just tell your story. You'll be asked questions, but don't get defensive."

Virginia had decided to go through each of Alex's missions in detail for the panel. Part of this was because she felt that the raw, grotesque things Alex would tell a panel of blustering adults would shock them beyond reckoning, and it amused her to shake them from their comfort zones. Another was that she knew most of the toadies that were hearing her case had _no idea _what it meant to serve one's country. What "being on a mission" for MI6 meant. She was going to open all their eyes with the subtlety of a hammer, because that was what it was probably going to take for them to give an old friend and colleague like Alan Blunt a serious punishment.

And because this was the right thing to do, so long as Alex was okay.

Alex, for his part, was holding himself together remarkably well. Truthfully, he thought it would be much easier to tell his story now, having already done it once before.

"You're okay?" Virginia asked. Alex nodded again, finding his voice.

"It doesn't really matter, does it?" He asked. "I've got to testify if we really want to stick it to Alan Blunt. You can't do this without me."

"Your faith in my ability as an attorney is touching and altogether heartening," Virginia said dryly. "Come on Alex, let's go tell the world the truth."

They drove around the massive marble building and entered through the back. Virginia led Alex up a set of stairs, around a series of twisting corridors, until they stood in front of a small wooden door.

"We're going in the side," Virginia smiled encouragingly. "Breathe Alex, and it will all be over soon."

She opened the door and strode in, letting Alex fall into step behind her. She gestured slightly towards a line of chairs against a side wall, where Alex would sit, and took her place at the counsel table.

Alex watched Virginia shake hands with – presumably – Alan Blunt's attorney, and go through the niceties of reopening testimony for the day.

"Our first witness for today is Alex Rider," Virginia said. "He's remained in protective custody for the last week following events that I think are best described by him personally."

Alex swallowed, and stood up, feeling incredibly self-conscious as every eye in the room fell on him.

"Miss Allen, I hope you are not wasting this tribunal's time," one of the members of the panel said tersely. "We are not here to listen to the idle prattling of a schoolboy."

Alex could feel waves of smug superiority radiating off his attorney as he sat down at the table in front of the microphone that Virginia had indicated.

"I assure you, Mr. Rider has a great deal to tell us," she said.

"Very well then, lets hear what the boy has to say," the panelist said, leaning back. Alex swallowed again, finding his voice as every eye in the room came back to rest on him.

He fought the urge to run his hands through his hair to make sure it was alright.

"Alex, could you please introduce yourself for the court record?" Virginia asked. Alex nodded.

"My name is Alex Rider," he said. "Born Alexander Jonathan Rider, to my parents John and Helen Rider. They died, shortly after I was born, and I was raised by my uncle, Ian."

"When did you first encounter Alan Blunt?"

Alex closed his eyes, reminded himself that this was how everything would end, that this would lead to his freedom and safety and a life free of being a scared little boy being manipulated at every turn.

"It after Ian's funeral," Alex said. "I was fourteen, and they'd told me he'd died in a car crash."

"What made you think he hadn't?" Virginia asked.

"Ian was… a strict parent, yeah? Wouldn't budge on a ten o clock curfew, never let me stay over at friends unless he had full contact information and three phone numbers, never drove around the corner without making me put my seat belt on. They said he'd died because he wasn't wearing a seatbelt, and I just couldn't believe it. And then there were the bullets."

"What do you mean, bullets?"

"In his car," Alex elaborated. "I went looking for Ian's car in the junkyard, expecting it to be totaled, but it was only a little dented. There were bullet holes up and down one side."

"How did this lead to your interactions with Alan Blunt?" Virginia asked, probably because she could see as well as Alex that the tribunal was becoming frustrated at the lack of getting to the point.

"I was contacted a day later," Alex said. "By Alan Blunt. He'd been watching me, and he brought me into his office. He told me the truth: that my uncle had been a spy, and that he'd died on a mission working for MI6. He asked if I wanted to help finish the mission my uncle had died before completing."

"What was your answer?"

"I told him that I was a bloody schoolboy, not a spy, and that I was leaving. But Mr. Blunt, he told me that either I'd work for MI6, or they'd get Jack, my housekeeper deported, and they'd send me to an orphanage. If I did what they asked, Jack could keep her visa, and could remain my guardian."

"What did Alan Blunt want you to do, Alex?" Virginia asked, enjoying the discontent among the members of the tribunal as they – at long last – began to see where this was going. Their expressions ranged from utter disbelief to confusion to horror.

Alex explained in as much graphic detail as possible what he'd been asked to do. He talked about his training with the SAS, the Stormbreaker computers and Yassen Gregorovitch and nearly dying so many damn times he'd lost count. The words fall easier and easier from his mouth as he explains how he commandeered an airplane and literally parachuted into a building and shot the Prime Minister, there are small noises of protest. Virginia pauses once to remind the tribunal that she will provide corroborating evidence for every piece of testimony Alex is giving, before letting him finish with his final kidnapping by Herod Sayle.

His throat grew dry, and as much as he tried, he can't avoid how uncomfortable, how raw this testimony was for him. He knew in advance that there was no way he could talk about _everything _without making himself vulnerable, but that was what Virginia wanted, the proof of how badly MI6 had scarred him.

Each word feels like triumph. Its truth and justice and the end of Alan Blunt.

"That is an extraordinary tale," Virginia said finally. "Was that the only mission you undertook for MI6?"

"No," Alex said.

"How many missions did you undertake for MI6?" Vivian asked.

"Three or four I think," Alex said finally. "Not including the times I got dragged into trouble by association, or got loaned out to another agency."

Apparently that statement was the final straw. The tribunal erupted in cries of distress and disbelief.

It took nearly ten minutes before the room is quiet, and Vivian finds her authority again.

"For now I'd like to have Alex dismissed so that I can bring forward evidence corroborating his testimony today," Virginia continued. "Though I intend to revisit all his other interactions with MI6 later."

Alex was allowed to leave the table where he was testifying for the better part of an hour, and sits down back at the side. Vivian smiles at him as she brings him a glass of water during the recess, and tells him he'd done excellently.

When they got back into the courtroom, Alex finally fully understood why Virginia was the head of Internal Affairs. She had a vicious, voracious inclination towards detail. The sheer analytical and organizational power of Virginia's brain astounded Alex.

She calls in the head of the auto lot that had been slated to destroy Ian's car for less than five minutes to enter into evidence pictures of the car with the bullet holes in the side.

A police report offered from one of the officers on duty confirmed that Ian had been declared dead, and that it was in fact Ian's car. The cop also entered CCTV pictures of Sayle kidnapping Alex in the taxi right out outside of MI6 headquarters.

And then came the biggest surprise of the day.

Smithers was called to the stand. He provided an audio recording of the meeting in Blunts' office, and admitted that under Blunts' orders, he had provided Alex with a series of "gadgets" designed to help him complete the mission. He provided detailed technical schematics and chemical makeups of each gadget he'd given Alex.

Virginia also had Smithers corroborate all of the communications Alex had with MI6, including his message where he'd alerted the agency that Yassen Gregorovitch, a known assassin, was present.

Smithers didn't once look towards Alex, his expression grim and serious for the entirety of his testimony.

When he was done, Virginia brought forward the commanding officer of Breacon Beacons, who testified that he'd brought Alex into the training camp under the codename "Cub" and placed them with K-Unit. He gave Virginia the paperwork that had assigned Alex to the camp – it just had his school ID picture and the codename "Cub."

Then she called Wolf.

"My name is James Garrott," Wolf said. "I'm a paratrooper with the Special Air Services."

"How did you meet Alex?" Virginia asked.

"Cub? He was a pain in my ass for two weeks during training," Wolf grinned. "He saved my career by pushing me out of an airplane, which is the nicest thing he could have done for me after I was such a pissant."

Virginia had Wolf explain what Alex's training had been like, and Wolf described how he'd bullied Alex. Alex turned red as he talked, because he'd pretty much glossed over that part in his own story. He'd long since forgiven the man.

After that, Alex had no idea how Virginia would prove his story, but he needn't have worried.

A clean up crew had been sent to catalogue the factory. They had confirmed the hidden compartments in the computers held Anthrax, and pictures of the facility were entered into evidence with various officials, constructing the story of what Alex had gone through.

Apparently, some of Alex's blood had been left at the warehouse at several points, because DNA verification put him there as well.

Virginia even had a picture of the broken tank and dead Man-of-War, and Alex had to look away while that was projected for the tribunal. After all this time, he still couldn't even thing about jellyfish without his stomach turning.

Finally news clippings about the shooting were entered, and the uncensored pictures of Alex with a gun in his hands, dangling ridiculously from a parachute caught in the ceiling, are revealed.

By the time she finished, Virginia was looking fairly pleased with herself, and asked for a recess for lunch.

The panel agreed quietly.

Alex thought they looked like they were in shock.

One of them was looking down at the picture of the Man of War, and then back at Alex, possibly imagining him at fourteen, locked inside Sayles twisted aquarium with the thing, and shuddered.

Alex understood that feeling.

He thinks even if he were to live to be a hundred, he'll never be able to set foot inside an aquarium again.

Virgnia collects him and they leave the room by the side exit, heading out to get some food.

"That went very well Alex," she said. "I know this is exhausting for you, but keep going."

Alex nods. He downs three glasses of water and manages half a sandwich, nerves keeping him from eating as voraciously as he might want to.

"Color me impressed at your skill in finding people to prove everything I've said," Alex told his attorney.

"It's a gift," Virginia agreed, and before long they were back in the courtroom, and Virginia called up Alex again.

"I'd like to go through the second instance during with you worked with MI6…"

Just like the morning, Alex spends about an hour talking, starting with his hilarious (and badly thought through) attempt to drop a barge full of drugs and their deal into a police conference.

Alex was willing to admit that hadn't been the most well executed plan he'd ever come up with. He was also willing to admit that it may have been a slight overreaction.

He describes the twisted school he'd been sent to, under the guise of David Friend's son. He talked about being threatened with being dissected alive, and the clones, and _dear god_ Alex hadn't ever gotten to comparing his missions before but this one was so, so much worse than the debacle with Sayle. He feels physically ill during points of it, and the panel is deathly silent. Their faces were pale, though most manage to keep their expressions closer to neutral than horrified.

He describes the violent, wrenching terror that led him to snowboard down a mountain on a modified ironing board, and his intimate collision with a train. How he went back, and Wolf got shot, and the whole bloody mess that ended in his school being set on fire by a homicidal clone.

When he was done, Virginia had him sit down, and she went through her entire meticulous process of proving his story once again.

She called up Smithers again to discuss the mission and the gadgets and everything Alex had been given, including the exploding earring. Surprisingly, he gave some very sobering testimony about Alex's message for help that had been ignored. Alex had at the time just assumed his call for help had never reached MI6, and it had been a blow to learn how easily MI6 had just ignored him.

Then Vriginia calls Fiona Friend.

Jesus Christ, what kind of power does this woman wield, that she can get the daughter of a multibillionaire to come to a military tribunal to testify? Alex wondered. He wanted to know what Internal Affairs had done to get Fiona fucking Friend on the stand.

Actually, on second thought, he might be better off not knowing.

At eighteen, Fiona was even more beautiful than she'd been three years ago. Alex remembered that, at least. Her wit was still cutting, but she was taking this seriously, dressed in a muted black suit with a simple gold necklace. She tells the panel about Alex, and the cover she'd been ordered to participate in. Alex wonders if strictly speaking, it might have been better to call her father, but he knows where Virginia is going with this: traumatized children make much better witnesses for the prosecution, because nobody wants to overlook a child that's been so callously used.

She calls James Sprintz, whose testimony mirrors Alex's. He gives Alex a smile and a wave from the table before telling his story. Alex remembered how kind the boy had been to him, despite everything, and smiled back tightly.

He's beginning to wonder if some sort of blackmail was involved to get together so many children of the rich and famous to testify.

He needn't have worried, though. If he'd had the chance to speak to James or Fiona, both would tell him that they volunteered to testify when they'd been contacted by Internal Affairs, even before they were asked. James Sprintz told the attorney that had called him that he'd been waiting to be contacted for years about the events at point Blanc, and was ready to give every piece of information he had. He'd even booked his own ticket to Heathrow, cutting his vacation in Tahiti short.

Two other sworn statements from boys Alex had saved at Point Blanc were entered into evidence, and Alex was pretty sure Virginia had made her point.

The surgeon that operated on Alex after his accident with the train entered Alex's medical file onto the record and told the tribunal about Alex's extensive injuries and the fact that Alex was pulled out of hospital far too soon for a proper recovery.

Wolf was brought back back up to describe the final fight at the academy, discovering all the missing boys, and his injuries incurred protecting Alex.

The fire was common news, but what literally blows Alex away is that Virginia calls up a therapist as her last witness.

The therapist had apparently been assigned to treat Alex's clone at a governmental facility where he'd hung himself several months ago. Transcripts of his sessions with her were played for the record, and photos of his autopsy are spread out in front of the tribunal.

Alex was still shaking when he gets back to the safe house.

He can't believe – literally cannot believe – that MI6 never told him he had a goddamn clone somewhere. That might have become important at some point, but hey, why tell the teenager anything?

A hysterical giggle rises up from the back of his throat, and Virginia is holding him steady, her soft voice telling him to concentrate on breathing.

"You're fine Alex, nobody is going to hurt you," Virginia promised as Alex got his breath back. "Are you okay?"

Alex nodded slowly.

"Thanks," he said.

Virgnia sat back, looking out the window.

"I could get a conviction on today alone," she said finally. "Those people, they were horrified. Blunt won't be able to say shit to defend himself. We've got him on the run. But I want them to hear it all. I want to burn Blunt to the ground and expose every last detail of your missions."

Alex gives her a long, thoughtful look and seriously considers that.

"Nobody is ever going to say thank you," Virginia said finally, frustration edging in her voice. "The findings of this hearing won't be made public, not for decades, and probably not in either of our lifetimes but I want all of this on the record, because one day, even if it's a hundred years from today, I want everyone to know how brave Alex Rider was. Do you understand?"

Alex exhaled.

"I don't want the thanks," Alex said, and it's surprising how true that is for him. "I'm just tired of being scared, of being used."

There was a long silence in which Alex pulled himself back under control. "And since we're hitting Blunt, I want to hit him as hard as I can."

"Good," Virginia smiled. "Now, tomorrow I'm calling Sabina Pleasure and I wanted you to know that in advance."

Alex's heart does a funny little twist in his chest.

He doesn't sleep well that night, his brain a mess of images full of jellyfish and explosions and malicious eyes behind red tinted glasses and cruel laughter.

He wakes up an hour before he needs to, and sits in the kitchen in companionable silence with one of his bodyguards. She's reading the paper, but there's a gun within easy reach and at least two more on her person. Alex is pretty sure if they're attacked he can get the gun before she can, and then it'll be two against… however many.

His obsessive planning in case of attack turns out to be needless, however. Virginia picks him up at the same time, once again bearing coffee, and she ferries him into the car and towards the courthouse.

This time they jump straight into it. Alex talks about being recruited to scout at Wimbledon, and his run in with a Japanese gangster. He talks about being loaned out to the CIA to be a part of two of their agent's cover story. When he talks about the two agent's deaths, his voice doesn't waver, but it's a very near thing. He'd liked the two of them

And then he remembers his encounter with the shark, and waking up completely unable to move on a sugar mill roller, and General Sarov was asking him questions, poking holes in his already thoroughly exposed cover.

He talks about his repeated attempts at escape, and finally the showdown at Murmansk. And for the first time in two days, he freezes.

He doesn't know how to describe the certainty of his own death, not even now, where he's stared down his own demise so many times he doesn't even keep track any more. He doesn't know how to say that in those frantic minutes, trying to find a way to break free of the handcuffs that locked him to a railing in that nuclear waste ground, he had been certain that he was going to die, more certain that he'd been facing down a gigantic fucking jellyfish or snowboarding down a mountain on an ironing board or any of the other crazy shit he'd been through at that point.

Probably because every other time his life had been put in danger, Alex had been on the run, forced to make decisions to keep staying alive. He'd never had a chance to stop anything Sarov had planned, and in those frantic, hopeless minutes before he'd reached the chewing gum in his pocket, Alex was certain not only he was going to die, but that this was the end.

Finally he swallows.

"It was bad," he fills in the silence with a few scratchy words that don't even come close. "Then I got to the chewing gum Smithers had given me, and I used it to break open the locks and I went for the bomb."

Without thinking, without hesitating, he'd gone for the card key that would stop the detonation. There was no way he could have made a run for it, with all the guards, no way for him to clear the blast zone.

And then he'd had to kill Conrad just to get the doing done, and Alex knows its not the first person that died at his hands, but he'd still basically murdered Conrad. He doesn't feel so bad about that, honestly. He just wishes there had been another way.

Even staring down General Sarovs gun, Alex knew throwing the key into the ocean had been the right thing to do.

He remembered the sound of the gun firing, and thinking for a second that it had been _him _that had been shot. And then he opened his eyes and Sarov was dead and there were brains on Alex's face and the Generals blood all over, and he could hear the sound of bullets in the far distance, two forces fighting that he couldn't pay attention to, couldn't focus on.

The memory has Alex shaking, but he keeps going.

"I'd rather have been dead," Alex said finally into the silence. "I really would have preferred to die than let Sarov have his way."

It's a very quiet Virginia that ushers Alex to the side, offering him some water and patting him encouragingly on his back. It was a testament to how comfortable Alex had gotten with her that Alex didn't flinch.

"You're amazing Alex," Virginia whispered. "Just keep breathing, okay? In, and out. I know this is hard, but you're doing amazing."

And truthfully, in the telling, these memories are losing their power over him. Giving his version of evens its like drawing poison out of the wounds they'd left him with.

Alex clung to Virginia's words as she called up her witnesses. First off is Sabina, and she pauses by him. He's only just got his breath back, but he hasn't seen her in so long and she smiles at him. She reaches out a hand for his, and he can feel his breathing calm, the same way she'd helped him after he'd actually been in Murmansk. These are old wounds, wounds she'd already helped heal over once.

He has to let her go so she can get up to the table and sit down in front of the microphone.

He knows these memories – and the memories that follow, of Yassen Gregorovitch and Damian Cray and Air Force One – haunt Sabina as much as they do him. Maybe more, because Alex has plenty of horrors housed in his memory to dim the fear from these ones in particular.

She talks about Wimbledon and the Yakuza, about their time at the beach and the attempt on Alex's life. She's strictly to the point, and very factual. He wonders if she learned this from her father, who'd been a journalist before his death.

Smithers is testifying again, this time about the gadgets, and then Virginia plays the recording of Alex's phone call, and even to his own ears, his voice is frantic.

"I need to make a telephone call," Alex can hear himself telling the security guard on the tape, and he remembers how Sarov had the man shot just for hearing these words. He closed his eyes, holding his breath. _"There's a man called Sarov. He's carrying a nuclear bomb. He's planning to detonate it in Murmansk."_

Alex heard the rest, his own increasingly frantic pleas to be put through, and then he hears himself leave with leave with Sarov.

Alex flinched as he heard the man puttering about in the background of the recording cursing to himself, and then came the unmistakable sound of a bullet.

He'd never known that the man that had stopped him from making the call in the airport at Edinburgh had died just for hearing what Alex had said. The thought leaves Alex feeling hollow.

The recording was cut off then, and Alex was finding it strangely difficult to get a hold of himself.

He barely remembered the parade of witnesses after that – a commander from the Russian army that authorized the raid on Murmansk, the testimony of the CIA official that had set up their covers, even video footage from the compound on Skeleton Key, including the tape he'd doctored together.

There's even a picture, captured presumably by one of the Russian guards of Alex, standing at the end of the world in front of the stalled nuclear device, staring down the barrel of Sarov's gun.

Alex thinks he looks extremely young, even in the fuzzy footage.

There are more pictures, clearer ones, of all the bodies, testimony from a medical examiner from the States that had been called to catalogue and identify all the bodies at the shipyard.

It takes hours, and unlike with his first two missions, Alex doesn't listen very closely.

Its not worse than having to describe that moment when he'd called for help from Point Blanc and been ignored. Its not worse than throwing himself out of an out of control plane. It's not the worst part of any of his missions.

But he knows something broke inside of him after that.

It was clear after Yassen Gregorovitch saved his life the first time that Alex could never go back.

And the worst of it is he remembers, very clearly, looking down at the face of Joseph Kony and knowing that nothing was ever going to scare him again. That these shades and demons were all monsters under a child's bed, and that he'd seen too much to let them get to him.

He'd forgotten how potent his fear had once been. And he still saw those memories with the fear of an untested fourteen year old, and not the seasoned man he was today. He'd underestimated how much bringing up the past could hurt him.

They break for lunch.

Alex doesn't remember most of his testimony about Damian Cray. What he does remember is his description of going into the Royal and General and asking for help, only to be ignored.

"I'd done so much," Alex said quietly. "I'd worked for them for months and saved the world and everything, I did everything they asked, but when I needed help, when I knew something was wrong, they never answered."

It's an echo of what he'd said yesterday, about his time at Point Blanc – he'd called for help, any kind of backup whatsoever, and had been turned away. But that had always been the nature of his relationship with MI6 – giving up everything, and getting nothing in return.

Sabina testifies again. So does Smithers. After that Alex doesn't remember the rest of the faces called to the stand, can't recall what they'd said. They're blurs, and he lets himself be pulled away at the end of the day by Virginia.

"Sorry," he chokes out.

Virginia doesn't look unhappy, mostly just concerned.

"We're having a break for the weekend, and we'll get back to it Monday," Virginia tells him when they get to the safehouse. "Relax, watch some TV. Forget."

Alex knows he can't forget but he nods anyway. He'll try and push away the memories for a little while.

He spends about two hours running martial arts forms in the living room. None of the guards give him shit about it, and when they switch positions at eleven, one of the women – a short blonde with a smattering of freckles – offers to spar with him.

She's nearly as good as he is – her technique perfect in every way, formed through hours of work and practice, and some field application. Alex knows all of his best tricks because he made them up trying not to die.

"Good spar," she grins at him, and Alex grins back, feeling some of the tension bleed out.

When he sleeps, he's too tired to dream.

He watches some of the movies they've got, and explores the house. He makes friends with the agents protecting him, and finds out that they're specially designated by Internal Affairs from the military. None had any connections to SIS whatsoever. He was comforted by that, which Virginia probably knew he would be when assigning his detail.

He comes to an understanding, lying awake Saturday night, staring at the ceiling in his room. He's going to be okay. He's really going to be just fine. Alan Blunt, on the other hand, is going down.

By Sunday night, Alex feels slightly more relaxed, and he thinks he can get through the rest of his story without completely flipping out. He's told the worst of it, he thinks. At least – those early memories that scarred him and scared him and became his demons. The next story he has to tell is that of SCORPIA, and he's long since grappled with and gotten a hold of the issues that mission had brought out in him.

On Monday morning, Alex is back in the courtroom.

"Mr. Rider, are you quite sure you are ready to continue?" one of the tribunal asked, and Alex looked back. He's perfectly calm, now.

"I'm fine, sir," Alex replies. "I haven't really even scratched the surface on Alan Blunt."

And the words are so fucking satisfying because Blunt fucking _tortured _him, and Alex was so done laying down his life for that man's threats.

"I think it starts right where we left off," Alex said. "Yassen Gregorovitch died in Air Force one, and he told me to go to Venice and find SCORPIA. Because as we've established, sometimes I don't have the best ideas in the world, I decided to take the advice of a psychopathic assassin."

There are a few nervous chuckles, as though they're not quite sure if Alex is joking.

Alex quickly strips them of the notion. He tells them about meeting Julia Rothman, about the lies and the manipulation, and about the discovery that they were planning a massive terrorist attack.

And then there's the video.

Alex still can't believe that he let them pull him around on a string like that, and while he's made his peace with his own stupidity, he talks about his brief time with SCORPIA and being trained as a killer.

He finally gets around to talking about nearly assassinating Mrs. Jones, and one of the tribunal members holds up their hands.

"I'm sorry Mr. Rider, but I'm sure I misheard," she says. "I believe you just told us that you conspired to assassinate the deputy head of MI6?"

Alex shifts uncomfortably.

"It… wasn't my best moment," he admits. Understatement. "Look, I was stupid to believe them. I thought that she'd really killed my dad, and after everything, I guess I had no trouble thinking that the same people that let me nearly get killed dozens of times would just fire on their own agent. I wasn't thinking clearly."

The answer doesn't seem to fully satisfy them, but the looks of disgruntlement are mostly smoothed over.

He tells them about how Mrs. Jones told him the truth, how SCORPIA assassinated his dad months after the video had been shot. It had all been a set up designed to fool SCORPIA into thinking John was dead.

He describes the discovery of the Invisible Sword project, and their plan to kill thousands of British children. He talks about the fight where he used Niles fear of heights against him, and lived because of it. About the end of Invisible sword and Julia Rothman.

He ends with the shot that had nearly killed him outside of the Royal and General, and when he's done, he can almost hear the entire tribunal exhale a little.

Virginia is definitely enjoying this, Alex can tell. She has a particular flair for the dramatic that serves her well in a courtroom, subtle as it is.

She's as thorough as always, even bringing up his training assessments from Malagosto – she doesn't explain how they were procured, and Alex decides he doesn't want to know. He's beginning to think the woman is some kind of wizard or law-demon or something – which she passes on to the tribunal. Its pretty clear from the reports that Alex's shooting got piss poor when faced with a human target, and Alex knows now that he'd never shoot anyone unless he had to.

There's more testimony, from MI6, from the SAS, and (once again) Smithers. They talk about the deep cover that had been set up for John Rider, and the subsequent deaths of him and his wife.

What Alex isn't prepared for is Ian taking the stand.

The last time he'd seen his uncle was in an interrogation room. He looked better now, more himself. The shadows under his eyes were faded some, though even Alex could see from the other side of the room that the man looked tired.

"John was my brother," Ian said quietly. "He always warned me not to get involved in MI6, but I did anyway, because I worshiped him, and I wanted to be exactly like him. When he died…"

Ian doesn't have the words, and Alex is familiar with that kind of grief.

He'd felt it, once, for the man sitting not twenty yards away.

But after everything, he wasn't sure he was ever going to forgive Ian. The man paused as he left the stand, as though he wanted to say something to Alex, but the teenager looked down, not letting him catch his eye.

He doesn't have anything to talk to Ian Rider about.

They break for lunch, and Alex returns, quickly telling his version of the events that led to him investigating Nikolai Drevin and his Ark Angel project for the CIA. His discovery that Drevin was going to drop his satellite onto Washington D.C, and his determination to stop him.

And he knows this is when his story goes from strange to completely, utterly unbelievable.

And yet Virginia proves every word.

She even has medical records about his bone density that prove he spent time in space, and just… he thinks maybe this woman didn't have enough puzzles as a child (or perhaps too many?), or maybe that she is far too smart for her own good, because she's gone for even the most minute details. Nothing is left without evidence backing it up, from CIA corroboration that Alex was asked to help investigate Drevin to the shuttle crashing down near Australia and the agents that investigated it.

They leave early that day, and come back the next. Alex knows they're close to the end now – the end of his missions, the end of his flight, and the end of Alan Blunt.

And so he begins Tuesday talking about how the Australian secret service recruited him out of his escape capsule to investigate a South Asian gang.

"Alex, could you clarify something for me?" Virginia asks. She hasn't asked many questions, mostly directing Alex's testimony to certain details, but Alex looks up in surprise.

"How much time did you have between these missions?"

Alex frowned.

"About a month or two, at first?" Alex thought back, but he couldn't remember. He'd gone straight from the hospital into Drevin's plots, and then barged right into the snakehead gang, with barely a few days in between.

"Sometimes less," he said finally. "The last few happened right after each other, and there were only a few days or a week between them."

He could see the tribunal members frown, and he was trying to see Virginias point, until he found it and it seems glaringly obvious.

He'd still been hurt, had barely even recovered from being shot, when he was being asked to go on a mission for the CIA, and then Australia.

Without any further questions, he just kept going, talking about Ash, and their investigation of the snakehead gang. He talked about meeting Fox for the first time outside of training, and his agreement with Fox to work on looking into SCORPIA's attempt to assassinate a bunch of celebrities at some eco summit.

He talked about his capture by Yu, and then being sent off to the… hospital - it's really the kindest word - in the middle of the Australian Rainforest. It's fucking twisted, but he manages to get through the telling without too much trouble.

His escape is still one of the best moments of his life. He'd been so sure he was going to be ripped apart for spare parts, but he'd gotten away with a handful of sleeping pills and an exploding coin.

The relief he'd felt at the bottom of that waterfall was second only to the relief he'd known piloting a helicopter away from MI6's floating prison.

Alex sometimes marvels at the miracle of his own continued existence.

Virginia calls Ben, and Smithers, and a handful of ASIS and MI6 operatives. There's photographic evidence of the facility in the rainforest, and Alex decides to look away from the bloody tools in some of the pictures.

He's come to terms with his nightmares, but there's no sense in torturing himself with thoughts of how things could have gotten even worse for him.

There's a lot of testimony about Ash, his injury, and his role in the death of the Riders. Alex is okay with that. He's made his peace with what Ash had done. On the scale of horrifying things he'd come through, that betrayal didn't even rank top twenty.

After lunch, he tells the story of Desmond McCain in shorthand, mostly because that was about three hundred and fifty percent his own fucking stupidity, even more so than the Damian Cray mission. MI6 had asked him to examine a factory, not cause a major incident.

It doesn't take long, and it's another early day for the tribunal.

Wednesday picks up his story two years later, with Alex being dragged off in the night for "training." He talks about Yedit and Hammas and being captured by SCORPIA and saved by Yassen, only to have his plane hijacked.

What surprises him this time is Yedit.

Her hair is black today, short and ruffled as though she barely had time to get in order. She's wearing IDF camoflauge, and looking like she just got off a plane.

She probably had.

"Hello Alex," she said as she passed by him, and Alex can't believe she came to help him. She seemed to pick up on that, because she smiled at him gently. "You once brought evidence to clear my name of wrongdoing. How could I do differently when our positions were reversed?"

Alex finally got to hear the story of Yedit's one woman assault on the Knesset while he was held captive by Scorpia, and it was equal parts hilarious (in retrospect) and impressive. Yedit was utterly unapologetic in explaining her involvement in the debacle.

Alex could swear she looked a little proud of herself too.

They call Fox again, and Smithers, and after lunch Alex talks about running away because he was finally fed up with working for MI6, and how Jack had managed to adopt him. How Ian kidnapped him, and how he'd been saved – again – by Yassen Gregorovitch, who Alex was beginning to realize really should have died a long time ago.

He does learn something new, however, from Smithers. MI6 had replaced his bike and left a GPS locator in the frame, in case he'd ever returned to his house in Chelsea and happened to use it. Smithers testified that he had known Alex was in London, and where he had been while he plotted his break-in at the Royal and General, and said nothing.

It's a lot for Alex to take in, the knowledge of just how much Smithers had done for him. It was quite possible – if not extremely likely – that Smithers would loose his job for everything he was saying here. He was going to bat, and had placed himself on Alex's team. Given that he was implicating himself in a lot of Blunt's most sinister plans, that was huge.

After nearly a week of testifying, he was beginning to understand the politics at play here.

Virginia hadn't been exaggerating when she'd said this trial was going to be important. Hell, Alex would be surprised if the entire SIS branch was canned and rebuilt after everything this tribunal has heard.

And from what Alex was seeing, MI6 was fracturing. Internal Affairs was cleaning house, and they were rooting out the people who had been involved in Alan Blunt's scheming, and in the process figuring out who they could trust.

Alex finished by telling the tribunal how he'd played the remaining board of SCORPIA so well they'd believed him when he said he wanted to destroy MI6 (he leaves out the bit where only about half of that was actually a lie), and his mission to kill Kony in exchange for a new life.

He talked about Manchester and Piper and going on the run yet again, only to be captured by MI6 somewhere along the coast of Turkey.

And then he described being tortured by Alan Blunt.

There was a roar of outrage.

Alex was left feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, and he stepped down as the panel calmed themselves. A flurry of furious discussion drifted down from the table where the tribunal was sitting, but Alex wasn't paying attention anymore.

He's done.

All he wanted was to go home and sleep for a week. At this point, if Virginia can't put Blunt away for the rest of his life, then she really needs to get a new job.

When he left the courthouse, he let the pain and fear of his memories stay behind him. He was done with his past.

He wanted to get the hell out of there.


	12. Inferno

Operation: Scorched Earth – Inferno

**Okay so this chapter has a lot of things I've wanted to do for the longest amount of time ever. In other news, this is where I'm wrapping up the rest of my loose ends, because (lets all sob together now) aside from the epilogue, this is the last chapter of Scorched Earth, and the last major piece of my Alex Rider trilogy. **

**I'm sorry it's later than usual – I intended to finish it before finals hit; clearly, that worked out well, huh?**

**Anyway, it has been my honor and my pleasure, and I hope that this chapter takes us out on a high note, because I actually really love it.**

**That said, go love it too!**

**~InK**

…

Three weeks passed, and Alex received a call from Virginia, letting him know that she'd won her case, gotten the conviction that she'd needed. Blunt and half his camp were being put away for crimes against the state, and she had nothing but thanks for him.

Alex knew most of that already – he did have a computer, after all, and he'd followed the news related to the trial and Blunt's sentencing religiously (at least the information that was available to the public, which admittedly wasn't much) – and he was already making his plans. His time with MI6 was behind him, and he wanted to take his life back.

He knew MI6 had been watching him since the tribunal ended. It made Alex grit his teeth but he knew that the tribunal must have had a hard time overlooking the parts of his testimony where he ran off to join SCORPIA and tried to assassinate one of the heads of operation at MI6, or when he broke into a secure SIS location to get a bargaining chip for a terrorist organization. He didn't know who was running MI6 now, but he fully expected them to keep an eye on the teenager who had already proven himself to be a deadly weapon when applied deliberately.

To be honest, he doesn't give a flying fuck what MI6 is up to anymore: he just wants to get on with his life. If they're willing to let him do that, he's willing to (for the most part) ignore the agents he catches tailing him from time to time, and the cable van that's been parked across the street from his flat for the last few weeks.

He finished his GSCEs – which he'd been ready to take months and months ago - and then sat for his A levels. It takes four months to finish preparing for the latter, but Alex strongly believes that he did extremely well. All the preparation Anish drilled into him helped a lot. The scores won't go out for weeks, and Alex privately has a harm time believing he's even a little nervous. After actually being tortured, what's a few exams? And yet, it feels good to worry about something so mundane, so normal.

One week after he sat his A levels, there was a knock on the door of Alex's apartment. He'd been living at the house in Chelsea, but after a few days, he knew he had to move, not just because Ian was going to eventually want to use his house (and Alex was seriously done dealing with his uncle. If he never crossed paths with Ian Rider again, he'd die a reasonably content man. He's not ready – wont ever be ready – to come to terms with everything the man has done, with the fact that Ian just _left him to MI6_).

He was lost in thought as he wanders to the door and pulls it open without even thinking about it.

He promptly regretted it.

"No," he said sharply. "Hell _fucking _no. Get out."

He tried to close the door in Mrs. Jones face but she deftly maneuvered her shoe in the way, and Alex isn't impressed anymore, because this is just childish.

"Five minutes, Alex?" she asked.

Alex stared at her, his eyes as cold as ice. Tulip hadn't testified at the tribunal, but some of Virginia's comments about a source in MI6 had Alex thinking. He wondered if she'd refused to testify so as to appear neutral, or if she just didn't want to bother getting mixed up in it all.

Either way, he doubted she meant him deliberate harm, and had possibly helped him a great deal by bringing his case to the attention of Internal affairs, if his suspicions were correct.

He exhaled harshly, annoyed with himself for even considering letting the woman in. Finally he turned away, leaving the door open because he's an idiot who makes bad decisions.

Though honestly its not like he could stop her if he wanted to anyway.

"I'm not working for you again," he snapped, putting some distance between himself and the former Deputy Director of MI6. "That's non-negotiable."

"This isn't that kind of visit Alex," Mrs. Jones said, and Alex was sure her voice was meant to sound reassuring. It wasn't. "First, I wanted to congratulate you on your results," Mrs. Jones said.

"I've only just written the exams," Alex frowned, but Mrs. Jones slid an envelope towards him.

"Consider it a perk of having once been involved with the government," she told him. "We didn't influence your results, we just got them as soon as your tests were marked, in case you were worried. I also wanted to let you know that I've been made director of MI6."

The news only surprised him a little bit – enough to derail him from the exam scores MI6 had dubiously obtained.

"Your uncle is my deputy."

Alex laughed.

It took him about five minutes before he could stand without holding onto the counter for support.

"You're taking the piss," he wheezed out, but Mrs. Jones just shook her head.

"He's smart, he's reliable, and I'm reasonably sure I won't be arguing with him about putting teenage schoolboys into danger," she said frankly. "Alex, I'm sorry –"

"No," Alex cuts her off. "We're not doing this. I don't want to hear you apologize. In fact, piss off. I'm doing fine without MI6 in my life, and you lot can be assured that I won't be joining you or running off with Yassen fucking Gregorovitch, which means I'm none of your damn business, so leave me the hell alone. And on that subject_, stop bloody following me!"_

Mrs. Jones held up her hands in surrender.

"There's one more thing," she said, holding a second envelope out for Alex. He didn't take it. "Some of the results of the tribunal have been released. Your name will probably stay out of it forever, but there's no hiding what your father did anymore, not after all the testimony that was given. The Queen would like to posthumously award him the Victoria Cross, for his service to this country. Both Ian and I thought you would like to be there."

Alex blinked, not quite sure how to react to that.

"Much like yourself, your father gave a lot of himself to defend this country, because he felt it was the right thing to do," Mrs. Jones continued. "And I think you should go."

Alex folded his arms and glared right back, obstinate. His mouth was turned down in a frown, and he was wondering what angle Mrs. Jones was working.

"I'm not working for you," he said quietly.

"This isn't a bribe Alex," Mrs. Jones replied simply. "My job as the new head of administration has been bringing my house into order. The first thing I did months ago was examine every mission undertaken under Alan's leadership. We've lost good men on badly planned missions. One of them was your father. He saved hundreds if not thousands of lives at a great personal cost to himself. I think recognizing him for that is the least of what I could do for his memory."

She placed the invitation to fucking Buckingham Palace on Alex's counter, and left.

Alex stared at the piece of paper.

Huh.

…

He went walking along the streets of London, his mind racing.

Let it not be said that Alex didn't have a complicated relationship with his father. He'd spent a large part of his life not even thinking about the man, and when he'd been old enough to feel his loss, it hadn't been long before the loss of his uncle had overshadowed it.

The anger, the pain from SCORPIA's blatant manipulation of him had scabbed over. He'd believed his father to be a traitor, had learned that the opposite was true, and then realized that John Rider had been loyal to an organization that had used him and blackmailed him.

It was hard to emotionally connect to a man he'd never known, to understand why he'd done what he had.

The skies above London were grey, and threatened rain, though it didn't fall. Alex wandered aimlessly, watching gusts of wind drive up small groupings of leaves along the sidewalk.

If he went to Buckingham Palace, it was likely Ian would be there too, and Alex had even more mixed feelings towards his uncle. He'd loved the man, worshiped him, wanted to be exactly like him. But Ian had left him to MI6 to do as they pleased. He'd lied to Alex every day of his life.

And Alex understood _why _Ian had lied, but that didn't make it hurt any less. It didn't make his disappearance on a mission feel any less like abandonment, as unfair as that might be to the older Rider. Alex hated that childish part of him that just wished Ian had been _there _for him, but there it was. As it turned out, even Alex Rider had abandonment issues.

He pursed his lips in humorless amusement at the thought. Perhaps he was normal in some regards after all.

Alex wanted to go to the ceremony. It would be closure, a chance to honor what his dad had done. After all, John Rider had done what he'd done for his family, more often than not, had tried to protect Alex.

And Alex wanted to try and understand that deeper motivation that had pushed him towards love of country and duty. John Rider had been an honorable man.

Was Alex Rider?

He wanted to be. And maybe that was a good first step.

So even though it might be hard, Alex was going to go and lay the ghost of his father to rest, and then he was going to move on with his fucking life. He was going to figure out where he fit into this world when he wasn't MI6's reluctant teenage spy.

There had to be a place for him here, after all.

He found himself walking back towards his flat, a sense of purpose in his steps, head held just that much higher with his self-determination.

The rumble of thunder came just as he reached his front step, and he managed to open the door before the downpour began.

It pounded against the window as Alex closed the door behind him, his hand sliding along the wall for the light switch.

Unthinking, he turned towards the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea.

But someone was already sitting there.

Yassen Gregorovitch was sitting at his kitchen table drinking coffee.

Alex had barely a second to register that before he felt himself being grabbed from behind, someone pulling his arm up behind his back. He tried to scream, but there was a strong hand covering his mouth silencing him.

He grunted in impotent frustration, struggling against the hold his captor had him in, heart racing at the thought that he was going to be killed or kidnapped –

Yassen stood, leaving the cup of coffee on the table, and finally making eye contact with the teenager.

"You have been particularly busy," Yassen said slowly. "Alex."

Alex jerked against the goon that was holding him, but he didn't so much as budge.

"Now we're going to have the conversation that you so rudely hung up on," Yassen continued dangerously. Alex closed his eyes, fighting to calm his pulse and try to think a way out of this.

"It was very childish of you to hang up on me," Yassen said, folding his arms. His goon removed his hand from Alex's mouth, and the teenager took in a gasping breath, glaring at the assassin.

"Didn't I say that if you came looking for me, I'd plant a bullet in you?" he all but growled.

Yassen smirked.

"And yet here I am, and here you are, defenseless and unarmed."

Alex jerked against the restraining grip of the man behind him.

"I'm not working for you Yassen," Alex said. "So what, are you going to kill me?"

Yassen shrugged, taking a few steps to the side, before turning back to face the teenaged spy.

"It's a possibility," he said. "I honestly haven't decided yet."  
>And Alex was just about done with all of this, done with being dicked around by spies and assassins and killers. He'd fought an uphill battle for his freedom and just when it seemed that something like normality was just within his grasp, this asshole went and ruined it.<p>

Well, he didn't have to take this shit.

"If you're going to shoot me, then shoot me. If you wanna talk, then say something useful," Alex replied, watching the assassin warily. He was hoping the man wasn't about to pull out his gun and take the shot. He didn't think Yassen would, but Alex had pretty much established a long time ago that his perceptions of what the Russian would or wouldn't do were way off.

He wondered, briefly, where his government-sponsored tail was. He wondered if they were planning on making themselves useful anytime soon. He doubted it, if MI6's general reputation for being helpful was an indication.

"Why did you turn down my offer?" Yassen asked.

"I don't like being manipulated," Alex glared back.

"I had hoped it was something more than your infantile desire to not want to do as you are told-"

"Shut up," Alex cut in sharply. "Seriously. I've been blackmailed since I was fourteen, and I am taking back my own bloody agency. It's not childish. And you need to stop stalking me because I really am going to kill you the next shot you give me. I told you, Gregorovitch, I've picked my side, and it's not yours."

Yassen fixed Alex with a cold, penetrating stare.

"Yes, I believe you have," he said at last. "Will you go back to working for MI6 then, Alex Rider?"

Alex looked at him incredulously.

"Of course not," Yassen answered his own question, his lips quirking into what was almost a smile. "You are not nearly so forgiving as Ian; I do believe the time has passed when you could have a gun pointed at me and not pulled the trigger."

"Don't talk about my uncle, you wanker," Alex shot back. He might not be feeling generous towards Ian Rider right now, but he wasn't going to listen to Yassen badmouth the only parent he'd ever really had, aside from Jack.

Yassen chuckled, tilting his head to the side as he considered the youngest Rider.

"Very well," he said. "Our accounts are settled between us, Alex. But should your path make you more enemies than friends, your talents will be appreciated among those who could show you how to get exactly what you want with them."

"Not. Interested."

Yassen shrugged, and placed a printed card on Alex's table, before picking up the coffee mug and placing it in the sink. How considerate.

"I believe that you feel that way now," he said. "And rest assured, if you get in my way, I will not hesitate to shoot you, as I would have done your uncle, had I needed to. I would rather not."

"Because of my father?" Alex asked, a hard note in his voice.

"Because you are amusing, little Alex," Yassen smirked.

What an asshole.

"For now, however, I will be going."

Alex wasn't ready for the blow that sent him sprawling to the floor, driving all the wind out of him. His vision greyed out for a second, and when he put himself to rights, the door was closing behind Yassen, punctuated by the sound of roaring thunder.

By the time he pulled the door open, the assassin and his lackey were nowhere to be seen. The rain was really coming down, pounding hard against the quiet street outside. Overhead, there was another crash of thunder, and Alex ducked back inside his flat, knowing he'd never catch a glimpse of the assassin or his hired help fleeing. Yassen was too good for that; he was probably long gone by now.

Alex sincerely hoped that it would stay that way. On the other hand, he'd never had good luck where the Russian assassin was concerned, so why would he start now?

…

The morning of Alex's visit to Buckingham Palace dawned sunny and cold. He pulled on a suit and went outside to meet the police escort he was being given to the palace.

He felt oddly detached, like he was watching somebody else walk into the royal palace. Like it was someone else surveying his surroundings, someone else trying to avoid the gaze of his uncle, who was waiting in the entrance hall.

He didn't want to talk to Ian.

As it turns out, the ceremony was short, and small. Alex was relieved for that, at least. He knew pretty much every person in attendance was SIS of some kind. Mrs. Jones was standing by Ian a few yards away, considerately not staring in Alex's direction. She, at least, seemed to have gotten the memo that Alex didn't want anything to do with her.

There were only a handful of representatives from the press, and Alex suspected that due to the nature of his father's career, security had greatly cut down on the members of the public who had access to the ceremony.

In short order, it began with the arrival of the Queen.

Alex was finding it hard to believe that this was actually happening.

"We are gathered here to honor the memory of a brave man, a man who laid everything on the line for his country, and gave our great nation his full devotion," The Queen began, her voice echoing over the crowd gathered there.

"It is a shame that he is not here himself to receive this honor," the Queen said, and it sounded genuine. "Jonathan Rider was a man of honor, a true hero who time and again proved his devotion to the defense of his country."

Glancing over at Ian, Alex could see a shine in his eyes that spoke of barely held back tears. The teenager looked down, uncomfortable and angry.

It wasn't fair, wasn't fair that Ian got to remember his brother, got to honor that memory now, and all Alex would ever have was a handful of pictures.

Against his will, he could feel his own tears welling up and brutally forced them back down.

The Queen spoke briefly about John Riders actions in the line of duty. His history of service. Alex let it wash over him. He knew the story, didn't need the media scrubbed platitudes. The truth was more brutal, more real, than any of this.

It felt like closure though.

"Alex Rider," the Queen said, and Alex's head shot up. _What_. "Will you accept the Victoria Cross on behalf of your father?"

Alex was going to punch Mrs. Jones in the face if he ever saw her again. She could have bloody warned him!

Actually, knowing her, she'd probably thought it would be a delightful surprise.

He barely managed not to stumble over his own feet as he walked over to her majesty, Queen of England.

He barely heard the last of what she said about bravery and heroism, a rushing sound in his ears drowning out his ability to even thing.

Okay so he was mildly freaking out a little bit, which was ridiculous because Alex had faced down dozens of crazy killers and megalomaniacs trying to take over the world, extremely dangerous men and women, and had barely batted an eye, but he couldn't even look his own Queen in the face. His earlier detachment had bled into a miasma of emotion that was threatening to drown him.

He finally accepted the thin box from her, and managed to look her in the eye.

"Now turn and smile for the lovely people," the Queen said, turning Alex around gently. Her frail looking hands were quite strong.

"I hear that there is more than one hero in your family," the Queen murmured to him.

"No heroes ma'am, just a lot of sarcasm and quick wit. With all due respect."

The Queen laughed – actually laughed! – and patted him on the shoulder.

"Your part in these events has been well obfuscated, and so I know you'll not hear much of this. Thank you for your extraordinary service to this country, service perhaps even outshining that of your father and uncle in its distinction."

Alex didn't trust himself to speak.

"You're a bright young man with a brilliant future wherever you go," the Queen continued. "Though I know you've every reason to hate this country, you've saved it time and time again. You're one of the good guys, and I would hate to see that change."

Alex nodded, and turned back to face the Queen.

"I've no intention of changing that, ma'am" he said firmly as the Queen eyed him sternly.

"See to it."

Alex left her royal presence with his heart beating at what felt like a million miles an hour.

…

Later that afternoon, Alex was sitting in a coffee shop on Oxford Street. He'd wandered around London aimlessly for a few hours, catching glimpses of his government-approved shadows every now and again.

So long as they kept their distance, Alex was willing to act like he didn't know they were there.

He was at one of the tables by the large bay windows, sipping his coffee, lost in his own thoughts.

His memories, especially of his time with SCORPIA, were practically burned into his brain. And even though he's watched the organization burn to the ground (had set the flint to steel himself), he still had questions.

Questions he'd never know the answers to, because every person who could have given him an answer is currently suffering from a severe and permanent case of being dead.

Well, everyone except Yassen, but Alex wants less to do with the assassin than he ever did.

"How is everything?" a cheerful voice asked, and Alex looked up, startled.

"Oh, its fine," Alex said, trying to force some normalcy into his tone. "Cheers."

"I'll just give you the check for whenever you're ready," the woman said, passing Alex the bill before turning away.

She was already gone by the time Alex registered that her accent had marked her as an American, not a Brit. It took him another second to realize there was another card tucked behind the receipt.

He picked it up. It was the size of a business card.

_We'd like to make you an offer of employment, if you're still interested in working in covert affairs. If you are, we've set up a secure meeting tomorrow that we can speak without your friends listening in. The FBI doesn't play the kinds of games MI6 likes to get up to._

The other side had an address and a time.

Well, that totally didn't look like a trap at all.

Alex crumpled up the paper, but instead of binning it with his empty cup, he slid it into his pocket.

Never let it be said that Alex Rider wasn't curious.

…

Curious he might be, but Alex wasn't stupid.

This could well be a trap, set up either by the FBI, or by someone else entirely.

And even if it was on the up and up, did Alex even want to follow up on the invitation? He'd resolved to set his own path, but what did that mean? Where did he want to go?

Alex was pacing back and forth across his apartment, mind racing.

A year ago, two years ago, Alex never would have taken it for granted that he would even make it to sixteen, let alone have the rest of his life to decide what to do with.

And now that he had the luxury of charting his own future, it was almost paralyzing.

He looked down at the Victoria Cross. He'd brought it home with him, and it sat in a drawer by his bed. He wondered if his dad would have displayed it if he'd received it while he was alive, and all he got for his trouble was a headache.

Trying to recreate the actions of a man nearly two decades dead was an exercise in exhaustion and frustration, and so Alex left it sitting in the drawer, because the one thing he did know was that John Rider hadn't done what he'd done for a damn medal, but he wasn't just going to toss it either.

It was all he was ever going to have of his father, the man that had given up everything for duty, and been fucked over for it in the end.

He wishes, more than anything, he could have his father back.

But that's not going to happen. So he'll hold onto the memory of his father as a hero, the false comfort that the world will never think of his father as some disgraced soldier, will always associate the man with the truth of his deeds, in the end.

Alex thinks maybe his father would have preferred to remain anonymous. He'd done what he did first for love of country, and then out of duty, and then to protect his son and his wife. John Rider had done what he felt was necessary.

They don't have heroes in their family tree.

Just people who were really, really, fuck all desperate.

But Alex was ready for that to change. He was tired of being desperate and scared, and he was ready to choose his side. He wanted something to fight for, something to believe in.

He didn't want to die like his dad, didn't want to be used like his uncle (like _he_ had been in the past_)_. He was going to write his own damn ending.

…

He scoped out the meeting place a few hours before he was due to meet the agent there, casually strolling along the street as though window shopping – because again, he was curious, not stupid. He didn't catch anything out of the ordinary, and satisfied his paranoia. He did, however, map out a few escape routes from the coffee shop where he was to meet with the representative from the FBI, just in case.

(Whether or not he was more worried about the people he was going to meet, or the agents from MI6 that had been keeping a careful eye on him isn't something Alex wants to consider too deeply).

He spots the agent he's supposed to be meeting nearly as soon as he walks in. She's innocuous, not someone you'd immediately pick out of a crowd unless you knew what to look for. She was dressed in a full suit, but so were half the occupants of the coffee house. The agent was pretty in a friendly kind of way, with round cheeks and a gentle kind of expression, framed by straight blonde hair.

Alex knows the telltale signs of government training by now though, and he's not fooled, though most people would be.

She's sitting with her back ramrod straight, a dress shirt tucked into slacks, with the seam of her shirt matching up with that of her trousers. The faint outline of the standard issue nine-millimeter pistol at her ankle, and the glimpse of a holster at her waist also help.

Finally, he ordered a coffee and joined the agent at her table in the back.

"You really aren't as subtle as you think you are," he said by way of a greeting. The agent, far from being annoyed at getting caught out, grins.

"Mr. Rider, we didn't think you would come," the agent said honestly.

"Well, I'm here," Alex said flatly, hands curled around the cup of coffee as he slid into his seat. "You said you had an offer. Make it."

The agent slid a folder over to Alex, who opened it carefully, sending a confused look at the agent. She shrugged.

"We've got about five minutes before your tail catches up with you, and I think we'd both prefer not to see what they would do if pressed to make a… rash decision," the agent said. "At the moment, your former employers don't have a reputation for playing well with others. By the time they get here, if I'm still here, we'll just be a few strangers, chatting over the manuscript for my latest book."

Alex couldn't argue with her assessment of MI6, so he busied himself with the offer the agent from the FBI had given him.

It was a job offer.

Huh. Not that Alex hadn't expected that, but still.

There was a single piece of paper, with a handful of bullet points on it.

He looked it over, reading each line twice, before pulling out a pen. He crossed out a few notes and added quite a few of his own. Just because he knew he was in a position to, he crossed out the salary and tripled it before handing it back to the agent, who read through Alex's amendments with interest.

"Done," she said finally.

"Seriously?" Alex asked. "Just like that?"

"I've been authorized to make a deal under certain parameters," the agent shrugged. "The salary is no issue, and we'd already intended to take extreme care in the protection of your identity and employment. Your specific measures are perfectly acceptable. If this is what you want, we can have you on a plane tonight, and we can meet to finalize the paperwork next week."

Alex looked out the window, eyes fixed on the busy street outside. Life in London was carrying on as usual, the shoppers out on Oxford street mingling with tourists and students.

He exhaled, thinking about everything he was leaving behind.

"I know this is all happening very quickly for you," she told him quietly. "You can still decide to say no. If you meet with my boss and don't like what you hear, there will be no hard feelings. This is a job offer, not a kidnapping, and you don't need to feel pressured into making this decision."

Alex wanted to laugh at that, because in one sense or another, he'd never really had the personal agency to make the choice about whether or not he wanted to work for MI6. This was new, fragile ground for him.

"Right," he nodded, looking back to the agent. "Yeah, lets do that."

"Excellent," the agent said, extending her hand towards Alex. "We'll be in touch soon, and I look forward to working with you someday if you do sign on with us cowboys."

Alex took it, a cautious, genuine smile growing on his lips.

The agent left quickly afterwards, and Alex leaned back in his chair, sipping his coffee and watching the rain pound down on the world outside.

He felt like maybe, for the first time, things were finally looking up.


	13. No Two Fires (Epilogue)

Operation: Scorched Earth – No Two Fires (Epilogue)

**It's done.**

**After all this time, after all these years, this story is at it's close.**

**Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, reviewers and lurkers, welcome. This is the end. The last chapter in an insanely long story I never thought would ever finish.**

**To date, it has been more than four years since I published the first chapter of Red Crescent, and now the final arc is complete. I am literally without words.**

**Some of you (like Tyz and P2D) have been here practically from day one, cheering me on, making my writing better and stronger, helping make this story happen. Others have found it in the intervening years – and it has gained new followers as recently as last week.**

**So if you've been with my Alex from the beginning, or just caught up with us for the final note; if you've left a review on every chapter, or have never said a word to me; if you read each chapter as it came, or if you binged through the whole thing last night; thank you. Thank you all for loving this story that I've put so much into. It's been fucking incredible. This is the most massive writing project I have ever completed in my life, and the response has been so overwhelmingly positive and supportive I could actually cry. I'm crying a little now writing this, actually. Tears of joy, I promise. You guys are my muses, and without you, it never would have gotten finished. I love you all; you're the best.**

**And so for the very last time, I invite you to join me for a new chapter of Operation: Scorched Earth!**

**This is it.**

…

Ian Rider opens his office on a Tuesday morning to find his nephew sitting in his chair, his feet on the older Rider's desk. Heavy, mud caked boots are casually resting on top of a small stack of files open in front of the younger man, and arms clad in the sleeves of a black leather jacket are folded behind Alex's head.

"Get your feet off my desk," Ian manages, annoyed because it is too fucking early for this, and shuts the door behind him. He wonders what he did to deserve having to deal with his nephew before he's even had a coffee. Alex chuckles, and checks his watch. His feet don't move off the table in front of him.

"Six-thirty-one, I can't decide if you're a minute late or three hours early."

"I asked you to get your bloody feet off my bloody desk and I'm not asking again."

Alex grins, a predatory, wolfish smile that shows both rows of bright white teeth.

"You going to shoot me if I don't?"

"Do I need to?"

Alex considers his uncle, head tilted to the side, and shrugs.

"Fine," he says, and apparently annoying his uncle in this particular way isn't worth that much to him, because his feet swing off the desk gracefully. There's an imprint of his muddy heel on the top file.

"How did you even get in here?" Ian demanded, shoving his briefcase on the edge of the desk and shooing Alex away from his chair.

"I smiled at your secretary and she swooned at my astounding good looks," Alex replies flippantly, and Ian wonders if Alex knows this persona he's crafted for himself is the very portrait of his father two decades ago, all rouge charm and devil may care attitude.

"Bullshit," Ian rolls his eyes, exasperated. "My secretary isn't in on the weekends."

"A magician doesn't reveals his secrets," Alex says, never dropping the grin on his face. He glances towards the briefcase, his eyes measuring the distance between him and the desk, as if deciding whether or not it's worth the effort to try and snag his uncle's briefcase. He settles against the opposite wall with a glance at Ian's jacket, where his crisp suit hides a pistol.

"Congratulations on your recent promotion by the way," Alex said. "But somehow I thought the director of MI6 would have a nicer office."

"Which brings me back to how the hell did you get in here?" Ian demands again, sitting down in his chair and brushing the dirt off his files.

"The how is immaterial," Alex waves his uncle's concerns away – and really, Ian knows that the Americans have low standards but how on earth does anyone put up with his nephew enough to keep him on a regular payroll?

The answer, of course, is that Alex reserves this particularly antagonistic brand of sarcasm just for his uncle. Lucky Ian.

"Anyway, less with the how, I'm more concerned with the why. After all, you did invite me here."

"Yes, and an appointment was arranged through your… intermediary… for next week, as I recall."

Alex's actual employers prefer not to advertise the fact that they managed to make an attractive enough offer to the teenaged spy that saved the world to get him to rejoin the intelligence community, and while Ian absolutely put forth best efforts to know who was paying his nephew, he still had to deal with a third party intermediary to speak to his own flesh and blood. It was a little ridiculous, but Ian supposed the less direct contact he had with Alex's boss on the subject of Alex, the less likely it was that Alex's cover would be discovered.

"I prefer spontaneity," Alex said, and there's a dangerous edge to that smile now. His voice isn't playful anymore, and its pretty clear that he's dead serious. Ian feels like he should have foreseen the fact that Alex is too paranoid to be anywhere near a place when he's expected to be there, especially not now when there's more than just his own life at stake.

"Would this have anything to do with the lovely Mrs. Rider?" Ian asked with a smile of his own.

"She prefers Mrs. Pleasure," Alex shot back, but its clear Ian's comment had hit the nail on the head. Alex doesn't like to be where he's expected, because his job and his work are dangerous, and he's not the only one invested in his personal safety anymore.

"Ah yes. Didn't I read something of hers in the paper yesterday? Afghani warlords funded by US arms dealing or something like that?"

Alex relaxes into the couch along the far wall.

"I never thought I'd say this, but I think Sabina's job is more dangerous than mine," he admitted, laughing a little. "She stirs up trouble everywhere she goes, and its wonderful. It's like watching a hurricane – you either get out of the way, or she gets you."

"Still stupid in love I see."

"Always, but that's not why I'm here."

"No, it's not," Ian agrees, shuffling his papers on his desk. He's got most of the mud brushed off them and sets them aside before pulling his briefcase towards himself. He punches in the code, fully aware of Alex trying to get a glimpse at the numbers (even if Alex was able to get the ten digit code, the lock is fingerprint coded and will shock anyone stupid enough to try breaking in) before opening it and pulling out a file.

"This better not be a job offer."

The smile slides off Alex's face almost instantaneously.

"Oh this? This isn't for you," Ian says, and Alex leans back again, watching his uncle suspiciously. "Though forgive an old man for trying to get his nephew to come back to the family business, as it were."

"The family business that sanctioned my torture?" Alex's voice is deadly calm.

"We're under new management," Ian shrugs. "Who are you working for these days, anyway?"  
>"Classified," Alex says at once. It's mechanical and well practiced.<p>

"Off the record."  
>"Still classified."<p>

"I'm your bloody uncle!"

"And I'm your bloody nephew and you were going to die letting me believe you worked at a bank!" Alex shoots back flatly, unimpressed.

"Fine," Ian mutters. "How in the seven hells did they manage to recruit you, anyway? Tulip had a good watch on you from the moment the trial started until you went off grid."  
>"One of my bosses main selling points was their complete and utter discretion on the subject of my employment."<p>

And it's true. Among other things, the FBI had promised him that they could keep him completely anonymous, and make sure that his name never came up on the watch list of any international agencies. They'd funded his college education (his examination scores had gotten him into Dartmouth on his own merits, and the FBI had footed the bill), signed a contract that kept him in their files as an official agent with regular pay and enforced paid leave, among a number of other stipulations Alex had demanded and immediately received.

Of course part of his end of the deal was occasionally working with the CIA – under very strictly regulated terms, of course (even Alex found it entertaining how difficult it was for the CIA and the FBI to get along). It was the director of the CIA at Langley that had passed on Ian's request for a meeting, which meant he was here in his capacity as an agent of the CIA, not the FBI.

"Ah."

"I'm impressed that even you don't know," Alex allows. "I thought there had to be a leak somewhere, unless you're just fishing to see if I'll give you something you don't already know."  
>He peers at his uncle, who is studying his nails innocently.<p>

"Alright, change of topic then," Ian says, shrugging. "Pirates, Somalia. Thoughts?"  
>"Mostly hijackings off the coast near the gulf of Aden," Alex drawls, bored. "Usually chartered by businessmen on the Somali mainland, and military efforts have basically had only minimal success protecting privately owned ships from being hijacked and ransoms. Why, got a piracy problem?"<p>

"Possibly," Ian thumbs through the documents in his briefcase as though the subject as a whole is of little importance to him - though Alex suspects that its in large part the reason he's sitting around in his uncle's office when neither of them can much stand the other.

He's patient though, because he knows Ian will work himself around to the point he managed to convince Alex to get on a ten hour flight for eventually.

"When was the last time you spoke to Yassen Gregorovitch?"

And there it is. This is beginning to sound very much like an interrogation to Alex, who tenses in his seat.

"Classified," he says instead of responding.

"Alex."  
>"Ian," Alex mimics his uncle's tone exactly.<p>

"Off the record," Ian insists. "I don't want to know where or what you talked about, I just want to know when you last had contact with Yassen."

Alex considers this, and sighs. Its not like it costs him anything to part with this information, but he doesn't like sharing information with Ian on principle.

Five years after the tribunal, Alex still wasn't willing to forgive his uncle for everything. However, this is business, and therefore not part of the petty games the Riders play with each other anytime they're forced into direct contact.

"Two years ago, Chicago," Alex says at last. "And I doubt he had many conversations afterwards."  
>"Hm. Why's that?" Ian asks innocuously.<p>

"I left him doused with kerosene in the middle of a blazing inferno with two nine millimeter slugs in his brain and three in his heart."

"Were you the one who shot him?"

"Classified."

Ian stares at him.  
>Alex stares back.<p>

He's remembering a rainy night in Chicago, remembering Yassen being caught in the middle of a drug war between two rival gangs, and the shootout that immediately followed. He's remembering the heat of fire licking at his skin and the cold, dead look in the Russian assassins eyes.

No, Alex hadn't fired the bullets that had killed Yassen. The Russian had already been dead when Alex shot him in the head, and that had been just in case.

He's willing to admit that dousing the man with petrol and throwing him into a burning building may have been overkill.

Just a little bit.

Okay so sue him, Alex was kind of tired of people around him doing the zombie routine and popping back out of their own graves like daisies.

"Alright, back on the record," Ian says. "Are you absolutely, one hundred percent sure that Yassen Gregorovitch is dead?"

Alex raises an eyebrow at the man.

"After taking five bullets and being burned to a crisp? Yeah, he's dead."

"You're _positive."_

"Yes, damn you, what are you getting at here?"

Ian is watching Alex very hard. Alex supposes his uncle is trying to catch him in a lie, trying to catch some small uncertainty or inconsistency, and Alex gets it. His relationship with his uncle has remained rocky at best, not helped by the fact that Alex vanished without a word after Alan Blunts indictment and the ceremony at Buckingham palace. They've talked maybe a dozen times in the last few years, and it's never without some level of contention and aggravation on both parts. They haven't spent more than half an hour all told in each other's company since they parted ways at Buckingham palace, and they're practically strangers now.

Alex is pretty sure they were always strangers, because he never really knew his uncle.

But now he's dead serious, because they don't play this game when it comes to national security, and they don't cover for infamous assassins. They don't, and Alex isn't ready to start. He knows most of MI6 still thinks of him as a criminal, and he knows that five years off the grid haven't helped that image any.

Ian blinks first, sighing and turning the screen of his computer to face Alex.

"This is security feed we recovered from CCTV cameras in the London tube," Ian explains, and pulls up a black and white video. They watch as scores of people pass under the cameras watchful gaze before Ian pauses the feed.

"Recognize anyone?" he asks.

And obviously the answer is no, because how many random strangers pass through the Underground every day, but –

Son of a bitch. The man in the left corner, with the baseball cap. He's got the right height and build, the same hair, the same watchful features and bright eyes.

And his gaze is turned directly towards the camera, with a small smirk at the edge of his lips.

"When was this feed taken?" Alex asks.

"Yesterday afternoon," Ian replies. "He came in on a flight from Paris, but we've traced his point of origin to Somalia. We believe he may be working as an intermediary with a group of warlords that have been attacking British merchant vessels in the gulf of Aden. So you can see my confusion. My nephew is sitting across from me insisting in all earnestness that Yassen Gregorovitch is dead, and yet yesterday afternoon he arrived in London and was –intentionally, most likely – spotted by CCTV. I'm left with a series of explanations, each less likely than the next."

Alex is shaken, staring at the face on the screen with disbelief.

He _saw _those eyes, cold and dead. Felt at his neck when his pulse stopped beating. Threw the man's body into the fucking flames – Yassen is _dead, _has to be dead, and yet…

"First," Ian holds up a hand. "That Yassen is in fact a zombie or vampire or some other supernatural creature. Yes, it was considered. Unofficially, anyway."

Alex snorts.

"Second, that Yassen yet again faked his own death, in a much more elaborate, violent way, simply to screw with you, and by proxy, anyone you might report to about it."

And Alex allows that this idea isn't without its own merits.

Yassen had a very special spot in his heard for messing with Alex. Towards the end, less so, mostly because there's only so awesome a single agent can get, and there's a point at which it no longer makes any logical sense to continue wasting time and resources trying to turn them.

Alex and Yassen had long ago made their peace with being on opposite sides of a war. They'd known up until the end what they would need to do if they ever came up against each other in a professional setting.

Alex got lucky, and walked away from that confrontation.

"Or third, that my nephew is fully aware that Gregorovitch is here to kill someone or cause some form of nefarious mischief, and is lying to me in the hopes of ensuring his accomplices success in the confusion."

Alex's heart feels like it drops through his stomach.

"You've got to be fucking with me," he says. "We are not doing this again. People _know _where I am, Ian. Powerful people that will protect me if they think you're acting out of line and that accusation is so far-"

Ian holds up his hands in surrender.

"Had to ask," he says. "I know you've had a… complicated… relationship with Gregorovitch, but I doubt you're lying to me right now."

Alex is breathing hard, as though he's just run a marathon. He doesn't like that Ian lied just to get his honest reaction to the accusation.

"Fuck you," he hisses, and he doesn't have to take this shit. He's about three seconds from just leaving, and the only thing that's keeping him here is an increasingly fraying respect for the kinship he shares with the man in front of him. "What is it you want from me here?"

Ian tosses a file across his desk.

"You knew Yassen best," he begins and Alex is already halfway to the door, his right hand raised in a middle fingered salute at the man behind him.

"Fuck you," he says again. "Deal with your own fucking problems."

"Of course I could just arrest you on suspicion of being Yassens accomplice…"

Alex whirls around and in a second he has his uncle pinned to the wall, his chair spinning away precariously.

"Don't you _dare _threaten me," Alex growls. "You'll remember that Alan Blunt did the same thing to me, but I'm no frightened teenager anymore."

"Then call your boss, see what he has to say."

Alex releases his uncle and stalks away, pulling out his phone. Still glaring at Ian, he holds the receiver up to his ear.

"_Good morning, sir,_" Alex says, and it's as insubordinate as he can manage it. "I really hope that you have no idea why I'm calling you right now."

There's silence from the younger Rider while he listens to the person on the other end of the line, a scowl firmly fixed on his face.

"No, I wouldn't have," Alex snapped, in response to whatever the person on the other end of the line says. "This is in direct violation of what we negotiated-" Then

Alex cut of, and a slow smirk spread over his face. For the first time, Ian's smug smile faltered; the game had changed, and he had no idea what cards his nephew was holding now.

"I see. Thank you sir, and I'm sorry for waking you up so early," Alex said at last.

It was practically polite.

Alex snaps the phone shut in a movement that _reeks _of satisfaction.

"I've been authorized to tell you that this investigation is going to be conducted by a joint task force of British and American agents," Alex grinned up at his uncle. "And that my purpose here is to ensure that you understand that this investigation _will _be led by the CIA primarily, and not British SIS."

The words are no less delicious coming out of his own mouth than from his receiver. "I suppose that makes me the one in charge, doesn't it?"

Ian's left hand twitches, as though he's sorely tempted to go for his gun and shoot his nephew in his smug, smiling face, but decides against it.

"The director of the CIA doesn't have the authority-"

"I didn't call the CIA," Alex put in helpfully. "I'm not their agent – not this week, anyway, I don't think. I'm officially scheduled for a rotation on drug trafficking but the President thought this was important enough to leave me in charge."

"You did not just call the President of the United States," Ian decides, trying to figure out whether or not Alex is bluffing.

He's way to satisfied to be lying.

Alex holds out the phone.

"You can redial the last number called if you like," Alex offers with a smile that is all innocence and helpfulness. "However, I'd advise waiting until you hear from _your _boss in a few hours about this, because while the President doesn't mind taking _my _calls once in a blue moon..." he doesn't finish, but he doesn't need to. Ian would be crucified for trying. "In the meantime, I'm going to my hotel and getting some sleep."

It's always worth loosing a few hours to get one up on his uncle – though Alex hadn't realized just how well this meeting would actually turn out for him.

If he'd waited, he knows he probably could have just gotten this information from his boss and avoided the confrontation entirely, but even given his late night call to his Commander in Chief, he thinks this round goes to him, on the whole.

Which reminds him.

"Oh, and one more thing," Alex turns around, and the smile is gone.

"Don't ever threaten me again," he said. "Ever. I'm not saying that because I have the President on speed dial. I'm not saying that because I have powerful friends. I'm saying that because the next time you try and threaten or blackmail me like Alan Blunt did, I'm not going to call someone on my contacts list. I'm not going to sic the President on you. I'm not even going to file a report about misuse of authority with my boss. I am going to come into your home when you are sleeping, dismember you, and leave the remains of your flayed skin hanging from this building like a flag. Can I make myself any clearer?"

Ian stares at his nephew like he's never seen him before, and maybe he hasn't. Aside from a brief interlude where he got shot on a friend's yacht in D.C, Ian has never seen this side of Alex, all taught lines, bloody hands and violent, _violent _eyes, ready to destroy anyone who stood in his way.

And it was a mistake, he knows, to play their game this way. He knows he never should have tried roping Alex into this with subterfuge, because nobody plays the game better than Alex. He'd spent the first seventeen years of his life being manipulated and blackmailed, and now he's made sure he's good enough that nobody will ever hurt him again. Ian had gone for what he'd hoped was the easiest way to get Alex to work with him, not recognizing just how much of a sore spot he was pushing until Alex lashed back out.

It's so hard to reconcile this man with the boy he left behind, the sweet, kind, clever child that Ian had been forced to abandon to the wolves. It was difficult to remember that kid in the face of this jaded, violent man that has been through far too much.

He'd thought he'd done the right thing, leaving Alex to MI6. Jack was wonderful, but she wasn't Alex's mother, and had to be allowed her own life, her freedom. And she certainly couldn't protect Alex like MI6 could have.

But they hadn't protected him. Ian had gambled that his bosses would never abuse a child. And Alex had lost for it.

He understands his nephews' anger. They play this game because Alex can't forgive him, will never be able to overlook everything he's done.

He thinks maybe Alex hates him, and knows that if he does, Alex is in the right for it. It's perfectly fair, but Ian can't bear to see the look in Alex's eyes, the look that only barely disguises how much he hates the older Rider.

"I understand," he says, feeling tired. "Ten thirty, then? We'll pick a team, decide how you want to approach this?"

Alex relaxes a little, watching him suspiciously as though still waiting for the other shoe to drop. For an instant, Ian catches a flash of _Alex – _sensitive, hurt, curious, genuinely interested in looking into a new case and saving the world for the nth time, but the sarcastic smile slips across his lips again, and he nods sharply.

"Bring coffee," he says (orders) and then before he can turn to leave again, Ian interrupts.

Who do you think told those guards to set the damn fire?" Ian asks quietly, and Alex freezes. It takes him a second to process what his uncle has said.

"Even when I was drugged up to the gills, there's only one person I ever wanted to fight for. You're the only reason I was even able to get up most mornings when John-"

And he's breaking so many taboos between them here. They don't talk about Alex's parents. They never did, even when Alex still thought his uncle worked at a bank, not when Alex walked in on his uncle slowly trying to drink himself into oblivion on the anniversary of his brothers' death.

And in five years, they haven't spent much time together. They fight and prod at each other because Alex is angry and Ian will always fire back because its easier than this, than talking about their feelings and the decisions Ian made. They haven't ever talked about Alex's incarceration with MI6, about Ian's role in everything that happened after he'd been kidnapped and drugged.

The words are so damn hard to get out because Riders don't talk about their feelings, don't make themselves vulnerable like that, and Alex is watching him with an impassive expression.

"I want to say I'm sorry, Alex," Ian said. "For leaving you to MI6 most of all, for lying to you, for everything."

His office is utterly silent for a long time.

"Who in gods name leaves a fourteen year old to a bank?"

"I didn't want to put any pressure on Jack to stay," Ian said, running a hand through his hair. "I thought you'd be protected, and not used. I thought… well, fuck. At the time, it seemed like the best of many bad options and I hoped for the best. I was wrong."

Alex frowns, but doesn't say anything else.

"We're not doing this," he says finally. "We're not having a tearful happy reunion or whatever you're trying to do. I understand, I do, but we're never going to have what we did. You trained me for a war I never wanted to fight, you gave me over to the people who used the skills _you _cultivated, and I nearly died so many times I don't keep count anymore."

"Alex-"

"I WAS FOURTEEN AND YOU HAD NO RIGHT!" Alex roars, and his body is perfectly still, frighteningly so.

And in the silence that follows, Ian can see the crack in Alex's cold mask.

"I know you didn't have a lot of choices, but fuck," Alex whispers.

There's another long uncomfortable silence before Alex speaks again, and this time he's regained his composure, covered up the crack that Ian had found in his nephews armor, the still raw, hurting wound that Ian himself had carved by inadvertently abandoning a teenager to the whims of a crazy person.

"I don't know if I can forgive you, but I do know that we have a job to do, and that I'm a professional, and so are you. I'll be back at ten thirty, and there better be coffee when you give me an actual briefing."

This time he's really gone, thankfully using the front door this time (thankfully because Ian can guess that the only other way Alex would have gotten in is through the window on the twelfth story and the thought nearly gives him a heart attack).

"Yeah," Ian rubs a hand through his hair, and returns to the files on his desk.

Yassen Gregorovitch isn't even his biggest problem this week, and he's actually quite happy to delegate the matter to Alex to take care of, because at the very least, he knows his nephew will take care of this in a way that will require very little paperwork being written up.

At the very least, he feels assured that Alex isn't being manipulated at his job. He knows Alex would kill or die to remain free of another Alan Blunt, but he worries about his nephew, much as he refuses to show it.

A few miles away, Alex flops into his bed at the hotel, so jetlagged that he never noticed the doorman's far too interested eyes following him as he made his way to the elevator, or the phone he pulled out of his pocket the second Alex was out of sight. He didn't bother with conversation - he just texted a single sentence to the only other contact in the phone.

"_Alex Rider is here."_

…..

**FIN**

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**.**

**.**

**.**

**With literally all my love,**

**~InK**


End file.
